BBC Book List
Apparently the BBC reckons most people will have only read 6 of the 100 books here.
Instructions:
1) Look at the list and put an ‘x’ after those you have read. (I’ll bold those I’ve read and italicize those of which I only read part.)
2) Add a ‘+’ to the ones you LOVE.
3) Star (*) those you plan on reading.
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– I just can’t get past the wandering.
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– My favorite book ever!
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*
I’ve read more of these than I thought! I’ve read about 38 of these. I read a lot of these in high school. Sadly, my recreational reading is a lot less edifying these days.
I find it interesting that the 100 books in your BBC list are different than the 100 books in ScienceWoman’s BBC list. Yours seems to include quite a few more modern popular fiction books.
I find it interesting that if you were to combine both BBC lists (and now am curious as to which would be the “authentic” list — though I would guess perhaps it would lean more towards SW’s list, because why would the BBC recon one would have only read 6 of the following books that includes 4 Harry Potter books? If you read two, you would have likely read the whole series) all three of my absolute all-time favorite books are included.
100 Years of Solitude (both versions of the list)
Heart of Darkness (SW list)
The Alchemist (your list)
Hmm, interesting. I did some Googling, and found that the list you have here is the Top 100 nominated “Best Loved” novels as voted by BBC Viewers, though no mention that only 6 of 100 would have been read. If those are the top 100 in all time, frankly, some people have really horrid taste. I was more impressed with SW’s list — some classic books disappeared between these two lists.
I took the second of ScienceWoman’s lists. The first one had some random duplications on it (like “The Complete Works of William Shakespeare” and “Hamlet”). But I may go ahead and update it with her first list, too. I really liked some of the books that were on that one that are not on this one. And I’ve got a bunch of spins tomorrow.
Both lists have things to aspire to and things, well, not so much. For me they were a really good reminder that I’ve simply got to read some Jane Austen.
I also wonder how different the list would be if the poll was done in the U.S.
This list is absolutely on fire this week! I wrote about it on my own blog today; it’s like catnip for the literary grad school crowd.
I ran across your blog while trying to discover the actual origins of the list. Turns out they are murky.
I have also seen many versions of this list, but I have the same reaction to all of them: each list has a whole host of books that I’ve always wanted to read if I could only find the time… sigh….. (It also reminds me about some books that I LOVE that I should really read again. Like A Tale of Two Cities. I adored that book when I first read it, and I still refer to it regularly.)
Science Woman: You definitely should read some Jane Austen. I love Pride and Prejudice. You’re right both lists are missing books.
scs: Welcome to the blog! (Maybe you’ll stick around a bit?) You’re right it is like catnip!
Nicky: I feel like I want to read just about everything on here. Sigh.
If any book on there…. Watership down. Geezz… one of the best books ever when I read it. I still love it. My eyes tear up at certain times and well… I am just a fan 🙂
I love these kinds of lists! I, too, have read 38 of these books.
(P.S. Just a leeetle behind in my blog reading!)