BBC List of Top 100 Books - How many have you read? - ESL Blogs

Following is a list of books selected by the readers of the BBC site as the best books. I have indicated if I have read the book by writing "yes" beside it. How many have you read? Any favorites?

BBC Top 100

1. The Lord of the Rings - Yes

2. Pride and Prejudice -Yes

3. His Dark Materials - Phillip Pullman - Yes

4. The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams - Yes

5. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire - Yes

6. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee – Yes

7. Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne - Yes

8. Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell - Yes

9. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - Yes

10. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte -Yes

11. Catch 22 - Joseph Heller - Yes

12. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte -Yes

13. Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk - partially

14. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier - Yes

15. The Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger -Yes

16. The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame - Yes

17. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens - Yes

18. Little Women - Louisa M Alcott no

19. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres - No

20. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy - No

21. Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell - Yes

22. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone - JK Rowling - Yes

23. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets - JK Rowling - Yes

24. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban - JK Rowling - Yes

25. The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien - ; Yes

26. Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy - No

27. Middlemarch - George Eliot - No

28. A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving -partially

29. Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck - Yes; one of my faves

30. Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll - Yes

31. The Story of Tracy Beaker - Jacqueline Wilson - Yes

32. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez - No

33. The Pillars of the Earth - Ken Follett - partially

34. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens - no

35. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Yes

36. Treasure Island - Robert Louis Stevenson - yes

37. A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute - Yes; it's great!

38. Persuasion - Jane Austen -Yes

39. Dune - Frank Herbert - Yes

40. Emma - Jane Austen -Yes

41. Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery - ? Maybe

42. Watership Down - Richard Adams - Yes

43. The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald - Yes

44. Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas -Yes

45. Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh - no

46. Animal Farm - George Orwell - Yes

47. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens - Yes

48. Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy - No

49. Goodnight Mister Tom, Michelle Magorian - no

50. The Shell Seekers - Rosamunde Pilcher - no

51. The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett -Yes

52. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck - Yes

53. The Stand - Stephen King - Yes

54. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy - Not Yet

55. A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth – No

56. The BFG, Roald Dahl - yes

57. Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome - No

58. Black Beauty - Anna Sewell - Yes

59. Artemis Fowl - Eoin Colfer - Yes

60. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky - Yes; should be top 10 here

61. Noughts and Crosses - Malorie Blackman - no

62. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden - Yes

63. A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens - Yes; great book

64. The Thornbirds - Colleen McCullough - yes

65. Mort, Terry Pratchett - Yes

66. The Magic Faraway Tree - Enid Blyton - No

67. The Magus - John Fowles - no

68. Good Omens - Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman - Partially

69. Guards! Guards! - Terry Pratchett - Yes

70. Lord of the Flies - William Golding - Yes

71. Perfume - Patrick Süskind - no

72. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists - Robert Tressel - no

73. Night Watch - Terry Pratchett - Yes

74. Matilda - Roald Dahl - Yes, great.

75. Bridget Jones Diary - Helen Fielding - Yes

76. The Secret History - Donna Tartt -No

77. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins - NO

78. Ulysses - James Joyce - Started; about half finished

79. Bleak House - Charles Dickens -No;

80. Double Act - Jacqueline Wilson - No

81. The Twits - Roald Dahl - Yes

82. I Capture the Castle - Dodie Smith - no

83. Holes - Louis Sachar - Yes, good author.

84. Gormenghast - Mervyn Peake - No

85. The God of Small Things - Arundhati Roy - No

86. Vicky Angel - Jacqueline Wilson - No

87. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley - Yes

88. Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons - No

89. Magician - Raymond E. Feist - Yes

90. On The Road - Jack Kerouac - Yes

91. The Godfather - Mario Puzo - No

92. The Clan of the Cave Bear - Jean M. Auel - Yes and all the sequels

93. The Colour of Magic - Terry Pratchett - Yes

94. The Alchemist - Paulo Coelho - No

95. Katharine - Anya Seton - No

96. Kane and Abel - Jeffrey Archer - No

97. Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez - No

98. Girls in Love - Jacqueline Wilson - No

99. The Princess Diaries - Meg Cabot - No

100. Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie - Yes

Several of these I had begun reading on my Kindle and my Kindle quit working :( I haven't replaced it so I haven't finished those books. "Ulysses" I have in hard back but haven't finished. It is a slower read "Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man" which I did read.

You can see the BBC article here http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/bigread/top100.shtml

You need to be a member of MyEnglishClub to add comments!

Join MyEnglishClub

Comments

Tim New July 8, 2013 1:34

Here is a google doc where I have been collecting links to sites that advertise "free" e-books. Note I have not tried all of them; make sure you have good Anti-virus protection if you visit any of the ones not indicated as "Good" or have a Macintosh :)

The Google Document e-book list
Tim New April 14, 2013 22:30

Bea It was a BBC poll which means ordinary people submitted their favorite books. I suspect (I don't know) the BBC asked people to list their 10 favorite and them compiled the list based on how many people had a book mentioned. It wasn't designed as a "must read" list but rather Books enjoyed reading the most. For people learning English, it is probably a better reading list than what an academic best books list might look like - see the Modern Library's List of the Best 100 Novels of the 20th Century. You'll see a big divergence between the Board (academic) and the Readers (common person) with the 2 list sharing just 32 Titles.

http://timnew.com/books/best100.html has that list

Modern Library's List of the Top 100 novels of the 20th Century
Tim New April 4, 2013 23:26

I am definitely a bookaholic (my coined word). I have always read (well since I was 4 anyway) and collected books. I started making a conscious effort a couple of years ago to read the books on the Modern Library's 100 Best Novels of 20th Century list. Since that list had 2 surveys, the Board and readers, there are actually 168 books with 32 books making both. Then I discovered the BBC Top 100 list which is not restricted to the 20th Century. Slowly I am reading the books from both lists.
_Bia(noprvtplz) April 4, 2013 16:59

what have you taken from those books ..thats what the most important thing!
_Bia(noprvtplz) April 4, 2013 16:42

Crispin by Avi, The Catcher in the Rye'Salenger, High Fidelity by Nick Hornby, Forge by Laurie Halse Anderson (children's books), Ribsy by Beverly Cleary, but i really enjoyed Smart Moves by Carla Hannaford and started to make use of her thoughts in practice too...I was really very impressed by the latest book i have read The Diary of a young Girl by Anna Frank, a diary of a jewish girl ....well reading books is very interesting , i hope i will find more time for them...
_Bia(noprvtplz) April 4, 2013 16:31

Pride and Prejudice -Yes,Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky - Yesn Anna Karenina -Dostoyevsky, Treasure Island - Robert Louis Stevenson - yes, Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell - Yes, Pride and Prejudice -Yes, To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee – Yes...Shakespeare, (to be continued)
Ario April 4, 2013 6:05

lol...yes, it's a lot of work to do. I thought about it when I was writing. But, I think whoever reads this blog might can help us to do that as well. Thanks for the list. I hope I could read one or two books soon.
Tim New April 4, 2013 4:19

Ario You are giving me a lot of work to do! We were discussing recommended books on chat which is why I copied this list from BBC. Some you can find in a local library, older ones will be available on the internet. I'll see if I ahve time to search for sites.
Ario April 4, 2013 3:42

Hi Tim. I think it will be better if you also list which books are available for free, whether in Gutenberg project or somewhere else. It's hard to find book in English here in my city. I know that Pride and Prejudice is available for free in Gutenberg project. But there are 100 books on your list. So, it will be hard to check.
Tim New April 4, 2013 2:40

Yes I like many authors not on the list, but I'm trying to read all the books that are on the list. We have to remember this was a BBC poll and it was several years ago. So the list will reflect some biases. I'd love to see a similar poll in the USA, Austraila, New Zealand, South Africa. Be curious to see how our reading habits and likes vary.

of 2

This reply was deleted.