--- title: the big read keywords: [books] --- [The Big Read] was a survey conducted by the BBC of the British public in 2003 with the goal of finding the best-loved novels of all time. I'm setting myself the challange to read all the books from this list. Looking through some of these titles, and I wonder how many people have these as actual favourite books, and how many just *say* that they're a favourite without thinking much about it or giving them a re-read. I mean... *Flowers it the Attic*? Really? | ? | # | title | author | | :-----: | :-: | ----------------------------------------- | ---------------------------------- | | | 1 | The Lord of the Rings | J. R. R. 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 | J. K. Rowling | | | 6 | To Kill a Mockingbird | Harper Lee | | | 7 | Winnie-the-Pooh | A. A. Milne | | | 8 | Nineteen Eighty-Four | George Orwell | | | 9 | The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe | C. S. 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 | J. D. 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 Bernières | | | 20 | War and Peace | Leo Tolstoy | | | 21 | Gone with the Wind | Margaret Mitchell | | | 22 | Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone | J. K. Rowling | | | 23 | Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets | J. K. Rowling | | | 24 | Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban | J. K. Rowling | | | 25 | The Hobbit | J. R. R. 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 | Lucy Maud 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 | | | 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 & Crosses | Malorie Blackman | | | 62 | Memoirs of a Geisha | Arthur Golden | | | 63 | A Tale of Two Cities | Charles Dickens | | | 64 | The Thorn Birds | Colleen McCullough | | | 65 | Mort | Terry Pratchett | | | 66 | The Magic Faraway Tree | Enid Blyton | | | 67 | The Magus | John Fowles | | | 68 | Good Omens | Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett | | | 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 | | | 101 | Three Men in a Boat | Jerome K. Jerome | | | 102 | Small Gods | Terry Pratchett | | | 103 | The Beach | Alex Garland | | | 104 | Dracula | Bram Stoker | | | 105 | Point Blanc | Anthony Horowitz | | | 106 | The Pickwick Papers | Charles Dickens | | | 107 | Stormbreaker | Anthony Horowitz | | | 108 | The Wasp Factory | Iain Banks | | | 109 | The Day of the Jackal | Frederick Forsyth | | | 110 | The Illustrated Mum | Jacqueline Wilson | | | 111 | Jude the Obscure | Thomas Hardy | | | 112 | The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13¾ | Sue Townsend | | | 113 | The Cruel Sea | Nicholas Monsarrat | | | 114 | Les Misérables | Victor Hugo | | | 115 | The Mayor of Casterbridge | Thomas Hardy | | | 116 | The Dare Game | Jacqueline Wilson | | | 117 | Bad Girls | Jacqueline Wilson | | | 118 | The Picture of Dorian Gray | Oscar Wilde | | | 119 | Shōgun | James Clavell | | | 120 | The Day of the Triffids | John Wyndham | | | 121 | Lola Rose | Jacqueline Wilson | | | 122 | Vanity Fair | William Makepeace Thackeray | | | 123 | The Forsyte Saga | John Galsworthy | | | 124 | House of Leaves | Mark Z. Danielewski | | | 125 | The Poisonwood Bible | Barbara Kingsolver | | | 126 | Reaper Man | Terry Pratchett | | | 127 | Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging | Louise Rennison | | | 128 | The Hound of the Baskervilles | Arthur Conan Doyle | | | 129 | Possession: A Romance | A. S. Byatt | | | 130 | The Master and Margarita | Mikhail Bulgakov | | | 131 | The Handmaid's Tale | Margaret Atwood | | | 132 | Danny, the Champion of the World | Roald Dahl | | | 133 | East of Eden | John Steinbeck | | | 134 | George's Marvellous Medicine | Roald Dahl | | | 135 | Wyrd Sisters | Terry Pratchett | | | 136 | The Color Purple | Alice Walker | | | 137 | Hogfather | Terry Pratchett | | | 138 | The Thirty-Nine Steps | John Buchan | | | 139 | Girls in Tears | Jacqueline Wilson | | | 140 | Sleepovers | Jacqueline Wilson | | | 141 | All Quiet on the Western Front | Erich Maria Remarque | | | 142 | Behind the Scenes at the Museum | Kate Atkinson | | | 143 | High Fidelity | Nick Hornby | | | 144 | It | Stephen King | | | 145 | James and the Giant Peach | Roald Dahl | | | 146 | The Green Mile | Stephen King | | | 147 | Papillon | Henri Charrière | | | 148 | Men at Arms | Terry Pratchett | | | 149 | Master and Commander | Patrick O'Brian | | | 150 | Skeleton Key | Anthony Horowitz | | | 151 | Soul Music | Terry Pratchett | | | 152 | Thief of Time | Terry Pratchett | | | 153 | The Fifth Elephant | Terry Pratchett | | | 154 | Atonement | Ian McEwan | | | 155 | Secrets | Jacqueline Wilson | | | 156 | The Silver Sword | Ian Serraillier | | | 157 | One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest | Ken Kesey | | | 158 | Heart of Darkness | Joseph Conrad | | | 159 | Kim | Rudyard Kipling | | | 160 | Cross Stitch | Diana Gabaldon | | | 161 | Moby-Dick | Herman Melville | | | 162 | River God | Wilbur Smith | | | 163 | Sunset Song | Lewis Grassic Gibbon | | | 164 | The Shipping News | E. Annie Proulx | | | 165 | The World According to Garp | John Irving | | | 166 | Lorna Doone | R. D. Blackmore | | | 167 | Girls Out Late | Jacqueline Wilson | | | 168 | The Far Pavilions | M. M. Kaye | | | 169 | The Witches | Roald Dahl | | | 170 | Charlotte's Web | E. B. White | | | 171 | Frankenstein | Mary Shelley | | | 172 | They Used to Play on Grass | Terry Venables and Gordon Williams | | | 173 | The Old Man and the Sea | Ernest Hemingway | | | 174 | The Name of the Rose | Umberto Eco | | | 175 | Sophie's World | Jostein Gaarder | | | 176 | Dustbin Baby | Jacqueline Wilson | | | 177 | Fantastic Mr Fox | Roald Dahl | | | 178 | Lolita | Vladimir Nabokov | | | 179 | Jonathan Livingston Seagull | Richard Bach | | | 180 | The Little Prince | Antoine de Saint-Exupéry | | | 181 | The Suitcase Kid | Jacqueline Wilson | | | 182 | Oliver Twist | Charles Dickens | | | 183 | The Power of One | Bryce Courtenay | | | 184 | Silas Marner | George Eliot | | | 185 | American Psycho | Bret Easton Ellis | | | 186 | The Diary of a Nobody | George and Weedon Grossmith | | | 187 | Trainspotting | Irvine Welsh | | | 188 | Goosebumps | R. L. Stine | | | 189 | Heidi | Johanna Spyri | | | 190 | Sons and Lovers | D. H. Lawrence | | | 191 | The Unbearable Lightness of Being | Milan Kundera | | | 192 | Man and Boy | Tony Parsons | | | 193 | The Truth | Terry Pratchett | | | 194 | The War of the Worlds | H. G. Wells | | | 195 | The Horse Whisperer | Nicholas Evans | | | 196 | A Fine Balance | Rohinton Mistry | | | 197 | Witches Abroad | Terry Pratchett | | | 198 | The Once and Future King | T. H. White | | | 199 | The Very Hungry Caterpillar | Eric Carle | | | 200 | Flowers in the Attic | V. C. Andrews | [The Big Read]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Big_Read