The Big Read is a National Endowment for the Arts program designed to encourage community reading initiatives and of their top 100 books, they estimate the average adult has read only six.
Here’s what you are supposed to do:
*Look at the list and bold those we have read.
*Italicize those we intend to read.
*Underline the books we LOVE. Share this list in your blog, too, if you like.
{I couldn't figure out how to underline in Blogger (!), so I used a simple system of one and two stars to indicate my LOVE. Unstarred ones are books I like, but do not LOVE. With the exception of The Da Vinci Code, which I do not even like.}
1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen**
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte**
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling*
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee**
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte*
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy**
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveler's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger*
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell**
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky**
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck**
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll*
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy**
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis**
34 Emma - Jane Austen**
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen**
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis*
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini*
38 Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden*
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving**
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins**
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery**
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel**
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen*
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth*
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon**
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez*
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck*
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville**
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett**
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray**
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker*
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert*
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry*
87 Charlotte's Web - EB White**
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery*
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo*
I tallied them up, and I've read 62 of the books on this list. I don't aspire to read them all, since these kinds of lists are rather subjective, and I don't know that they all deserve to be among the best 100 books (even some of the ones I've read). However, there are some that I'd really like to read -- including A Tale of Two Cities, which I tried to read once and gave up on. I struggle with
Dickens.
My local library is doing a month of activities for The Big Read on one of my all-time favorite books To Kill a Mockingbird. I'd like to participate in at least one of them.
From the above list, I'd say if you haven't read To Kill a Mockingbird or Anne of Green Gables, you'd better get on that. :)
If you have read and loved ones I don't have italicized, tell me what I should add to my to-read list!
11 comments:
Must reads:
Count of Monte Cristo
and
A Town Like Alice
Alas, I have not read as many on that list as I would like to claim. However, I have definitely read To Kill a Mockingbird and Anne of Green Gables--both musts.
this is a great idea, although i'm with you on what deserves to be on a top 100 list anyway? there are several i would have added (and taken off) to this list. a few you must read for sure -
a town like alice
the count of monte cristo
and i've heard really good things about hitch hiker's guide to the galaxy but haven't read it yet.
war and peace is definitely worth exploring, it's good to have that one under your belt although i'm not sure it's one of my favorites. make sense?
i would say that the poisonwood bible might be my all time favorite read and am shocked that it's not on here. and east of eden by jon steinbeck is fantastic, way better than grapes of wrath.
ok, i could go on and on. thanks for posting this list - kind of fun!
Wow 62! I knew you'd have way more than I did, but I'm still blown away by this number!
62 is pretty amazing! I confess I have not read as many as I would like to claim that I have. To Kill a Mockingbird and East of Eden are right up there for me.
i've seen this several times today and you definitely have read the most of those I have seen - most people that I have seen have read about 30. we are obviously WAY above the average. there are several on my "to-read" list. I also love to see what others have to say about books. Bridget Jones Diary seems way out of place to me?
I'm above the national average but definitely below the Michelle average!
Wow, 62! That's awesome! You're awesome!
I would say you definitely should read The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time. It has some language in it, but it is definitely worth reading.
I can't decide if I've actually read Anne of Green Gables or if I just saw the movie...but I will get right on that!
Also, I'm shocked that The Five People You Meet in Heaven in on the list but not Tuesdays with Morrie. They are by the same author and 'Tuesdays' is sooo much better!
I just finished my list--it was fun to do.
I would make time to read Count of Monte Cristo. It is hefty, but has it all. I'll also go out on a limb to encourage you to read Watership Down at some point. Yes, rabbits, I know...but it's really good.
There are a few I've liked that you haven't read, but Watership Down changed my life during my teen years! An allegorical tale, complete with intrigue and heros and male chauvinism.. all played out by a troupe of bunnies. Hmmm... I wonder how I would react to it now - I think I'll re-read it this week!
Oh, I admit to being a HUGE Dickens fan...I grew up on him. I still remember riding my bike to get the next one on the shelf at the library. Those were good days.
By the way, I LOVED your posts about standards night and your sunday thoughts. They have touched me so much this week. Thank you for sharing and blessing my life.
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