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BBC's The Big Read - Top 100

Ell

Ell

Well-Known Member
I know this was mentioned on a previous thread, but just got around to looking it up. Thought it would be interesting to post here.

From the BBC link:
In April the BBC's Big Read began the search for the nation's best-loved novel, and we asked you to nominate your favourite books. The votes poured in from all around the UK . . .
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The results, alphabetically:

1. The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
2. Alice's Adventures In Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
3. Animal Farm, George Orwell
4. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
5. Anne Of Green Gables, LM Montgomery
6. Artemis Fowl, Eoin Colfer
7. The BFG, Roald Dahl
8. Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks
9. Black Beauty, Anna Sewell
10. Bleak House, Charles Dickens
11. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
12. Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
13. Bridget Jones's Diary, Helen Fielding
14. Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres
15. Catch 22, Joseph Heller
16. The Catcher In The Rye, JD Salinger
17. Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl
18. A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens
19. The Clan Of The Cave Bear, Jean M Auel
20. Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons
21. The Colour Of Magic, Terry Pratchett
22. The Count Of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas
23. Crime And Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky
24. David Copperfield, Charles Dickens
25. Double Act, Jacqueline Wilson
26. Dune, Frank Herbert
27. Emma, Jane Austen
28. Far From The Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy
29. Girls In Love, Jacqueline Wilson
30. The God Of Small Things, Arundhati Roy
31. The Godfather, Mario Puzo
32. Gone With The Wind, Margaret Mitchell
33. Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
34. Goodnight Mister Tom, Michelle Magorian
35. Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake
36. The Grapes Of Wrath, John Steinbeck
37. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
38. The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald
39. Guards! Guards!, Terry Pratchett
40. Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets, JK Rowling
41. Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire, JK Rowling
42. Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone, JK Rowling
43. Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban, JK Rowling
44. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman
45. The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, Douglas Adams
46. The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien
47. Holes, Louis Sachar
48. I Capture The Castle, Dodie Smith
49. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë
50. Kane And Abel, Jeffrey Archer
51. Katherine, Anya Seton
52. The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe, CS Lewis
53. Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
54. Lord Of The Flies, William Golding
55. The Lord Of The Rings, JRR Tolkien
56. Love In The Time Of Cholera, Gabriel García Márquez
57. The Magic Faraway Tree, Enid Blyton
58. Magician, Raymond E Feist
59. The Magus, John Fowles
60. Matilda, Roald Dahl
61. Memoirs Of A Geisha, Arthur Golden
62. Middlemarch, George Eliot
63. Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie
64. Mort, Terry Pratchett
65. Night Watch, Terry Pratchett
66. Nineteen-Eighty-Four, George Orwell
67. Noughts And Crosses, Malorie Blackman
68. Of Mice And Men, John Steinbeck
69. On The Road, Jack Kerouac
70. One Hundred Years Of Solitude, Gabriel García Márquez
71. Perfume, Patrick Süskind
72. Persuasion, Jane Austen
73. The Pillars Of The Earth, Ken Follett
74. A Prayer For Owen Meany, John Irving
75. Pride And Prejudice, Jane Austen
76. The Princess Diaries, Meg Cabot
77. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, Robert Tressell
78. Rebecca, Daphne Du Maurier
79. The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett
80. The Secret History, Donna Tartt
81. The Shell Seekers, Rosamunde Pilcher
82. The Stand, Stephen King
83. The Story Of Tracy Beaker, Jacqueline Wilson
84. A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth
85. Swallows And Amazons, Arthur Ransome
86. A Tale Of Two Cities, Charles Dickens
87. Tess Of The D'Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy
88. The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCollough
89. To Kill A Mockingbird, Harper Lee
90. A Town Like Alice, Nevil Shute
91. Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson
92. The Twits, Roald Dahl
93. Ulysses, James Joyce
94. Vicky Angel, Jacqueline Wilson
95. War And Peace, Leo Tolstoy
96. Watership Down, Richard Adams
97. The Wind In The Willows, Kenneth Grahame
98. Winnie-the-Pooh, AA Milne
99. The Woman In White, Wilkie Collins
100. Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë

Some older classics, but many fairly new books. It would be interesting to do the same poll in, say 5-10 years and see how many of the titles remain.

So how many have you read?
 
34 and counting. I'm trying to keep track of them in a table for the members of another book forum and it's getting harder as more people submit.

I would like to work my way through all of them - and have about ten or fifteen of them in my collection of which I haven't read yet.

The British Library hold discussions on them weekly which I have been going to, and it's very good. The last one is this coming Wednesday where they will be discussing the final ten books (although can't remember what the topic is). I also like the fact that Waterstones and a few other book stores now have these titles on offer.

I think that list would have turned out a lot differently if there hadn't been so many children voting, which there obviously were - especially with the option of the online voting section. I was speaking recently with the guy who runs the BBC website (mostly the discussion boards of) and he mentioned a high percentage of the vote was by children up to the age of 14 (although I forget the percentage). This will probably also account for why HP comes under 4 titles where as Lord of the Rings and His Dark Materials come under just one - which is annoying.

My personal favourites so far are The God of Small Things, Holes and Great Expectations.

Mxx
 
I've read 40 of them, which quite impressed me! :)

Quite a high proportion of the ones I've read are children's books though, which is maybe slightly embarrassing for an adult! On second thoughts, I don't care - a good book is a good book, whether it's aimed at children or adults, so there! :) Some I had to read at school, eg Far From the Madding Crowd, an O-level book which I absolutely HATED. Have never read any Hardy since, and never will. Some others we read at school I liked, such as The Lord of the Flies and 1984. I also redeem myself by having read some "literary"ones, such as Pride and Prejudice and Jane Eyre.

An interesting list. I find it really good that there are so many children's books on it - does this mean that children really are getting into reading? I don't really understand why The Twits is on it though, nor Holes, which is good but not that brilliant. :)
 
Most of the childrens ones on there I would say are voted for by adults who 'remember them fondly'. Watership down for example - although that is probably in there for a fondness of the film and not the book.

I absolutely loved Holes, especially the way it handled racism and the beautiflly intertwined stories. 'twas marvellous, and very good for a second reading because you notice more things and how they are linked after you know hte story.

Each to their own, of course. I'm also a Hardy fan. :)

Mxx
 
Ive read 29 looking down the list (although i think thats different from my last count :confused: ) - i'm sure my parents must have some of those lying around the house, looks like i'll have to read a few classics for once!

Better go dig out that Jane Austen anthology!! :p
 
I'm quite ashamed to admit I've only read 14 of them. There are quite a few on my to-be-read list, but I'm afraid those don't count (yet).
 
14 is nothing to be ashamed of. I know some people who probably haven't even read 14 books. Others I know have read thousands and the majority on this list.

I plan on reading all of the books on the list, not because I think it's a great selection that defines literature at it's best, but because I am interested in finding out why something is loved so much be people and I am thinking that each of the books on there, even the terrble ones, must have something good about them.

Mxx
 
I've been long fascinated with looking at reading lists and this one struck me, as it did others, with the large number of children's books. Many of the children's titles I do remember fondly and many of the other titles I've been meaning to read, but never gotten around to.

I've read 39 from the BBC list and some I'll probably never read. But it serves as inspiration and a reminder of those I'd like to read: eg. "The God of Small Things", "Clan of the Cave Bear", "Holes", "David Copperfield", . . .

Here's a link to another incredible reading list:

Clifton Fadiman's "Lifetime Reading Plan" 1997

Even if I started immediately, I don't think I'd get through all of Fadiman's list. The ancient philosophers, alone, would take me half a lifetime to read and understand :(
 
Originally posted by Ell But it serves as inspiration and a reminder of those I'd like to read: eg. "The God of Small Things", "Clan of the Cave Bear", "Holes", "David Copperfield", . . .
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I really enjoyed Holes but the one book I urge anyone to read is The God of Small Things - which is absolute genius, and better the second time around. I cannot suggest it enough.

Mxx
 
To my mind, there is a huge variety here...Dostoyevsky together with Coelho?
I've read 30 books from the list so far.
My personal favourities are: The Lord of the Rings, Winnie the Pooh, Crime and Punishment.
 
37 in all for me, although like most people my age, I'd reckon a good proportion of that is made up by avidly devoured copies of Roald Dahl and older Terry Pratchet. Also a big thank you to my mum who bribed me £1 a book to read stuff like Swallows and Amazons and Treasure Island in the summer holidays. If the schools want to know how to get school age boys reading, bribery always works.
 
That's a great idea your mother had to get you to read. I would pay a lot more than that to read those books again for the first time, books are never the same when you are rediscovering them.

The next stage of the Big Read Top 100 is on Saturday 18th October where they are drawing up the list of the Top 20 books in the list (or at least I think that is what the advert said).

Mxx
 
42 - with quite a few on the list that I would like to read.

I can't help thinking though that some of the 'classics' always get nominated because of reasons other than that they are 'loved'. For example, I read Jane Eyre at college and although it was quite interesting to study it doesn't seem the type of book that would become someone's genuinely favourite read.
 
Jane Eyre is genuinely one of my favourites. I didn't read it for school, so wonder if that made a difference? Sometimes, I think when a book is 'required' reading and must be analyzed for a course or essay, it takes away any sense of enjoyment.

ps. Welcome to the forum, Lyra!
 
I've read 31, some of which I remember very vaguely from school or childhood. It's good to have that list although to my French mind it appears very British-centered (no offence!) and some f the books are not so good.
 
Well it is a British poll, I guess a French poll would have a similar predominance for French writing. It would be interesting to see how they compared, which ones got on both, especially the childrens stuff which I think kind of lets the BBC'c poll down a bit. Too many Harry Potter's and too many Jacqueline Wilson's took up places for me.
And Ell, reading at school uggggghhhhh a necessary evil I reckon. Thomas Hardy makes me shudder to this day.
 
Ell, I guess it is actually just a matter of taste. I have really enjoyed studying some books and felt that I got something extra out of them.

Thanks for the welcome :)
 
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