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A while back, the BBC published a list of the top 100 books that have been published.
According to the article, the average person has only actually read six of these novels. How well do you fair in this list? The following is their list of the top 100 books of all time.
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 (just parts, not in entirety) 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 (some titles, not all) 15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier 16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien 17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks 18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger 19 The Time Traveller'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 X, 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 Alborn 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 am not sure what is more depressing. The fact that the average person has only read six of these books or that so many really great books were left off the list.
Most of these books are required reading for most schools at different levels so the number being at only six is kind of disturbing.
Add to that, the fact so many books that weren't listed in the top 100. Where is Hemmingway, Faulkner, Camus or Hawthorne?
This is the problem with these lists. They are so subjective and random. Why does the media continue to do them?
What are your thoughts? What book shouldn't of made the list or what book should be on the list? Be sure to leave your thoughts in the comment section below.
» left by Avis Ward from SC (233 days 1 hour ago.)
Stephany, I agree with this statement: "I am not sure what is more depressing. The fact that the average person has only read six of these books or that so many really great books were left off the list." You're correct, they were required reading once upon a time. I am guilty of having read only half of them but have read others that didn't make the list and still reading.
Thanks for making me feel guilty! (Just kidding.) But thanks for sharing this. To read all of them isn't a great expectation.
» left by Stephany Springer (231 days 14 hours ago.)
Thanks for the comment, Avis! If you've read 50 of those books, then you're already doing light years better than the average person! I'd hate to see what is required reading these days, if this list isn't it! Respond to this comment
» left by Leo Ponder from Tyler, Texas (232 days ago.)
Well, I can name one right off the bat?
Tom Sawyer- Also Huck
Bonus-Uncle Tom's Cabin
No, These lists have a fatal flaw. And anyone can find it with their choice at the
» left by Stephany Springer (231 days 14 hours ago.)
Leo, Twain was one of the first authors I thought of when I got finished with this list. I wonder if it has anything to do with it being published by the BBC? Thank you for the comment! Respond to this comment
OK, I've read 'em all except 24:His Dark Materials, Tess of the D'Urbervilles, Rebecca, Birdsong, Middle March, Brideshead Revisited, The Wind in the Willows, The Woman in White, Far From the Maddening Crowd, Life of Pi, Atonement, Cold Comfort Farm, A Suitable Boy, The Shadow of the Wind, Jude the Obscure, Swallows and Amazons, Germinal, Possession, Cloud Atlas, A Fine Balance, The Faraway Tree Collection, The Little Prince, The Wasp Factory, A Town Like Alice
Of course there's a lot of top 100 classics lists and they are changing all the time, but the ones they have here are pretty common, a testament to my having read most of them.
Some of these authors and books I've never heard of, and that's good. But I'll probably never get to them all. I currently have close to 100 books at home waiting to be read. I'm usually reading at least two books at a time, mostly non-fiction. It's been a long time since I've read much fiction. I may do so for a writing class or two I'm teaching if something I haven't read looks interesting. I'm currently haveing a class read Tuesdays at Morries.
» left by Stephany Springer (231 days 14 hours ago.)
Jeff, I agree. It's similar to the lists that A&E put together of the best movies. They change almost yearly as well. But as long as "best" is subjective, I don't think there will be an end in sight. Thanks for the comment! Respond to this comment
I was actually surprised to find that I'd read 40 of these. I really like to read, but often don't like the "classics" :)
Interesting list - I would think that the fact that it came from the BBC IS significant. I wonder what the New York Times would consider the top 100...
» left by Ann Houpt from Panama city FL (227 days 17 hours ago.)
I've read 40 that I'm sure of (and considering that I've been reading for fun for 68 years, there may be more I've temporarily forgotten). I noticed the absence of Rudyard Kipling's Kim and other works. (and it's a British list!!) I understand it's a Classics list, and they were limited to 100, but ...
WHAT!? "Harry Potter" is on the list but "As I Lay Dying" isn't? "Harry Potter is on the list, but not "Don Quixote," "Oedipus Rex," or...well, ANY OF THE GREATEST WORKS EVER WRITTEN? This list makes me want to stick a shot gun in my mouth and turn my bedroom wall into a Jackson Pollock.
» left by Anonymous from NZ (63 days 14 hours ago.)
I was also surprised that there was no Camus, no Hawthorne, no Hemingway. I felt it strange there was also no Woolf, but there was Bridget Jones' Diary...
Okay. I'm a freshman and have read 74 and parts of 5 others. Its slightly more than depressing that the average american has only read 6 of these novels.
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