The Big Read

[the_siobhan]

I initially saw this mentioned on officialgaiman, and it's been showing up in a few places since.

I used to have a list of Utne Reader's canon [1] posted near my computer as a reference for whenever I really really felt like buying books but was at a loss as to what to read next. (This happens far less frequently than one might think.) So a idea of having as a resource a list of books that people actually read over and over again really appeals to me.

The Big Read
"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 and here's the results!"



1984, George Orwell
The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
Alice's Adventures In Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
Animal Farm, George Orwell
Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
Anne Of Green Gables, LM Montgomery
Artemis Fowl, Eoin Colfer
The BFG, Roald Dahl
Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks
Black Beauty, Anna Sewell
Bleak House, Charles Dickens
Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
Bridget Jones's Diary, Helen Fielding
Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres
Catch 22, Joseph Heller
The Catcher In The Rye, JD Salinger
Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl
A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens
The Clan Of The Cave Bear, Jean M Auel
Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons
The Colour Of Magic, Terry Pratchett
The Count Of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas
Crime And Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky
David Copperfield, Charles Dickens
Double Act, Jacqueline Wilson
Dune, Frank Herbert
Emma, Jane Austen,
Far From The Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy
Girls In Love, Jacqueline Wilson
The God Of Small Things, Arundhati Roy
The Godfather, Mario Puzo
Gone With The Wind, Margaret Mitchell
Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
Goodnight Mister Tom, Michelle Magorian
Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake
The Grapes Of Wrath, John Steinbeck
Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald
Guards! Guards!, Terry Pratchett
Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets, JK Rowling
Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire, JK Rowling
Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone, JK Rowling
Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban, JK Rowling
His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman
The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, Douglas Adams
The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien
Holes, Louis Sachar
I Capture The Castle, Dodie Smith
Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë
Kane And Abel, Jeffrey Archer
Katherine, Anya Seton
The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe, CS Lewis
Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
Lord Of The Flies, William Golding
The Lord Of The Rings, JRR Tolkien
Love In The Time Of Cholera, Gabriel García Márquez
The Magic Faraway Tree, Enid Blyton
Magician, Raymond E Feist
The Magus, John Fowles
Matilda, Roald Dahl
Memoirs Of A Geisha, Arthur Golden
Middlemarch, George Eliot
Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie
Mort, Terry Pratchett
Night Watch, Terry Pratchett
Noughts And Crosses, Malorie Blackman
Of Mice And Men, John Steinbeck
On The Road, Jack Kerouac
One Hundred Years Of Solitude, Gabriel García Márquez
Perfume, Patrick Süskind
Persuasion, Jane Austen
The Pillars Of The Earth, Ken Follett
A Prayer For Owen Meany, John Irving
Pride And Prejudice, Jane Austen
The Princess Diaries, Meg Cabot
The Ragged Trousered Philantrhopists, Robert Tressell
Rebecca, Daphne Du Maurier
The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett
The Secret History, Donna Tartt
The Shell Seekers, Rosamunde Pilcher
The Stand, Stephen King
The Story Of Tracy Beaker, Jacqueline Wilson
A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth
Swallows And Amazons, Arthur Ransome
A Tale Of Two Cities, Charles Dickens
Tess Of The D'urbervilles, Thomas Hardy
The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCollough
To Kill A Mockingbird, Harper Lee
A Town Like Alice, Nevil Shute
Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson
The Twits, Roald Dahl
Ulysses, James Joyce
Vicky Angel, Jacqueline Wilson
War And Peace, Leo Tolstoy
Watership Down, Richard Adams
The Wind In The Willows, Kenneth Grahame
Winnie-the-Pooh, AA Milne
The Woman In White, Wilkie Collins
Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë



There are things in here that I will probably never read -- I took a stab at a Harry Potter book once and it completely failed to interest me -- but I've had a copy of God of Small Things kicking around for a while.

[1] It was intended to be a list that was more inclusive of books written by non-whites and included names like Zora Neal Thurston.

Comments

[serenejournal.livejournal.com]

Any chance you could post the Utne list (or a pointer to it)? (I adore that magazine. I can't afford it, but I catch it whenever I can.)

Utne canon

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

A quick search found this (http://www.utne.com/web_special/web_specials_archives/articles/330-3.html).

It's not exactly the same as the list I have -- which is buried in a box somewhere. I'll post it some time after I unpack.

Re: Utne canon

[serenejournal.livejournal.com]

Thanks so much. You're the best.

[kest]

You realize there's another 50 books on that list, right? Page two?

fixed

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

No, because I am a dumbass.

(I blame being pre-caffeinated.)

[inulro.livejournal.com]

Being the lazy git that I am, I hadn't searched out the list yet. There's more good books on there than I expected. And indeed more than I've read than I would have thought.

Amongst the ones you haven't read, The Secret History is probably my favourite book ever, and The Woman In White is probably my favourite Victorian novel ever (I am not a fan of the Victorian novel, but love this book). Oh, and I recently read the first volume of His Dark Materials and it utterly blew me away - this stuff is not for kids!

I read an excerpt from The God of Small Things in a weekend paper when it came out, but haven't ever got round to reading it either.

And don't touch Bridge Jones's Diary with a barge pole. I saw the film (because I like Colin Firth and Hugh Grant) and it was the biggest pile of poo! I never relate to girly films, but sheesh!

Plus:

[inulro.livejournal.com]

Possibly more interesting, one of the very few books I've ever disliked enough to not finish is on there: Perfume. It was my then-boyfriend's favourite book. He was kinda disappointed when I hated it.