As seen everywhere: BBC Book list

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.

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9 Responses to As seen everywhere: BBC Book list

  1. 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)

  2. 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.

  3. 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.

  4. ScienceWoman says:

    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.

  5. scs says:

    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.

  6. Nicky says:

    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.)

  7. 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.

  8. chall says:

    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 🙂

  9. mrswhatsit says:

    I love these kinds of lists! I, too, have read 38 of these books.

    (P.S. Just a leeetle behind in my blog reading!)

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