Which ones have you read?

[Backroads]

Have you read more than 6 of these books? The BBC believes most people will have read only 6 of the 100 books listed here.



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 (all)

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 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 Berniere

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 Meaney – 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 **** – 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

[Dravin]

2, 4, 5, 6, 8, 16, 52, 87, and 100

[Jennarator]

I started to make a list, but then shut the web page so to save trouble, I would say I read at least 28 of these....that I remember. Yes, all the girlie ones. And what ever else my teachers made me read in high school and such. And many I have read more than once.

[Jenamarie]

I stopped counting at 12, and I wasn't even halfway through the list yet, so ya, more than six.

[applepansy]

Interesting list.

I've read 40 of the 100 you've listed.

I'm curious why they lsted the Chronicles of Narnia and The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe separately? I also wonder what their parameters were for "most people."

[Vort]

Originally Posted by Backroads

Have you read more than 6 of these books? The BBC believes most people will have read only 6 of the 100 books listed here.

1, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 16, 29, 33, 36, 40, 41, 49, 52, 58, 81, 87

That's 17, and does not include those I have read partially but not cover-to-cover (e.g. several of Austen's books) and those that I may have read as a child but don't remember well enough to count (e.g. Hamlet). And I am not particularly well-read; I know many people who have much more extensive literary exposure than I have (doubtless several on this forum).

Most people don't read English, so doubtless the BBC is right. Among those that do read English, most are not very well-educated, so the BBC claim probably applies generally in that case. If you are talking about educated English speakers -- for example the participants on this list -- then I doubt very much that the BBC's claim is true.

[Backroads]

Originally Posted by applepansy

Interesting list.

I've read 40 of the 100 you've listed.

I'm curious why they lsted the Chronicles of Narnia and The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe separately? I also wonder what their parameters were for "most people."

Sames goes for Hamlet and the Complete Works of William Shakespeare...

[Backroads]

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 (all)

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

15 Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier

16 The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien

19 The Time Traveller’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger

21 Gone With The Wind – Margaret Mitchell

22 The Great Gatsby – F Scott Fitzgerald

25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams

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

33 Chronicles of Narnia – CS Lewis

34 Emma – Jane Austen

36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe – CS Lewis

39 Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden

40 Winnie the Pooh – AA Milne

42 The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown

46 Anne of Green Gables – LM Montgomery

49 Lord of the Flies – William Golding

51 Life of Pi – Yann Martel

52 Dune – Frank Herbert

53 Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons

57 A Tale Of Two Cities – Charles Dickens

58 Brave New World – Aldous Huxley

61 Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck

62 Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov

64 The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold

65 Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas

71 Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens

72 Dracula – Bram Stoker

73 The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett

81 A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens

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

91 Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad

92 The Little Prince – Antoine De Saint-Exupery

94 Watership Down – Richard Adams

98 Hamlet – William Shakespeare

99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl

100 Les Miserables – Victor Hugo

[Jenamarie]

Originally Posted by Backroads

1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,14,15,16,19,21,22,25,27 ,28,29,30,33,34, 36,39,40,42,46,49, 51, 52, 53, 57, 58, 61, 64, 65, 71, 72, 73, 81, 87, 88, 89, 91, 92, 94, 98,99,100

Show off.

[LittleWyvern]

Originally Posted by Backroads

Sames goes for Hamlet and the Complete Works of William Shakespeare...

I've found the bbc article that this list comes from. This isn't a list of top 100 books (and there's no mention of only reading less than 6), but it's the results of a online survey as to what book was their favorite to read. So, the listings might be a little off if some people responded Shakespeare and some responded Hamlet.