The Big Read

A few years ago the BBC set out to find out what the nation's 100 favourite books were. Having done this they then printed a book saying what The Big Read is all about, which books got into the top 100 and a bit about each book. It goes without saying that I bought that book, and I've been meaning to read all 100, plus the 100 that almost made it ever since.

I was doing fairly well, especially as I'd already enjoyed quite a chunk of them, but then I let it slide and forgot all about it.

Until October of 2008, that is, when I resurrected the challenge and put it on my blog to help me keep track of it. Thanks to the 1001-library and my good friend Tree, I've managed to tick several more off the list. 

So, in order to keep track of how I'm doing, what I need is a list of all 200, with the ones I've managed so far checked off, and here it is. If it's on my blog, it's got more chance of being kept up with.

If it's highlighted, I've definitely read it. There are some on the list I think I've read, but need to check. Sometimes I'm not sure if it's the book I remember or the film/TV series. I know I've read some Terry Pratchett and some Charles Dickens, but I must check which. Actually, it's a good excuse to re-read the lot, don't you think?

If it's on it's way to me at some point through BookCrossing, I've indicated that too. (just so I can keep track) TBR indicates that I have the book but have not yet read it.

There are some interesting books there that I don't seem to have read so I'm looking forward to putting that right. The older children's books were easy enough to check off, as I devoured everything I could get my hands on when I was young. The newer kid's books, however, do need to be read. Not sure if I really fancy reading Jacqueline Wilson but I do quite fancy the Roald Dahl.  I draw the line at number 199 though!

Oh, and I must add how nice it is that the rest of the nation agrees with me that Lord of the Rings should be at number one.

The top 100 - 66/100

1. The Lord of the rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
2. Pride and prejudice - Jane Austen
3. His dark materials - Philip Pullman
4. The Hitchiker's guide to the galaxy - Douglas Adams
5. Harry Potter and the Goblet of fire - J. K. Rowling
6. To kill a mockingbird - Harper Lee
7. Winnie the Pooh - A. A. Milne
8. Nineteen eighty-four - George Orwell
9. The lion, the witch and the wardrobe - C. S. Lewis
10. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
11. Catch-22 - Joseph Heller
12. Wuthering heights - Emily Bronte
13. Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
14. Rebecca - Daphne du Maurier
15. The catcher in the rye - J. D. Salinger
16. The wind in the willows - Kenneth Grahame
17. Great expectations - Charles Dickens (tbr)
18. Little women - Louisa May Alcott
19. Captain Corelli's mandolin - Louis de Bernieres
20. War and peace - Leo Tolstoy (tbr)
21. Gone with the wind - Margaret Mitchell (tbr)
22. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's stone - J. K. Rowling
23. Harry Potter and the chamber of secrets - J. K. Rowling
24. Harry Potter and the prisoner of Azkaban - J. K. Rowling
25. The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
26. Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
27. Middlemarch - George Eliot (tbr)
28. A prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving
29. The grapes of wrath - John Steinbeck
30. Alice's adventures in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
31. The story of Tracy Beaker - Jacqueline Wilson
32. One hundred years of solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
33. The pillars of the earth - Ken Follett
34. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens (tbr)
35. Charlie and the chocolate factory - Roald Dahl
36. Treasure island - Robert Louis Stevenson
37. A town like Alice - Nevil Shute
38. Persuasion - Jane Austen
39. Dune - Frank Herbert
40. Emma - Jane Austen (tbr)
41. Anne of Green Gables - L. M. Montgomery
42. Watership down - Richard Adams
43. The great gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
44. The count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas (tbr)
45. Brideshead revisited - Evelyn Waugh
46. Animal Farm - George Orwell
47. A Christmas carol - Charles Dickens (tbr)
48. Far from the madding crowd - Thomas Hardy
49. Goodnight Mister Tom - Michelle Magorian
50. The shell seekers - Rosamunde Pilcher
51. The secret garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
52. Of mice and men - John Steinbeck
53. The stand - Stephen King
54. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy (tbr)
55. A suitable boy - Vikram Seth (coming from Katrinat)
56. The BFG - Roald Dahl
57. Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
58. Black Beauty - Anna Sewell
59. Artemis fowl - Eoin Colfer
60. Crime and punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky (tbr)
61. Noughts and crosses - Malorie Blackman
62. Memoirs of a geisha - Arthur Goldman
63. A tale of two cities - Charles Dickens (tbr)
64. The thorn birds - Colleen McCullough
65. Mort - Terry Pratchett
66. The magic faraway tree - Enid Blyton
67. The Magus - John Fowles
68. Good omens - Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
69. Guards! Guards! - Terry Pratchett
70. Lord of the flies - William Golding
71. Perfume - Patrick Suskind
72. The ragged trousered philanthropists - Robert Tressell
73. Night Watch - Terry Pratchett
74. Matilda - Roald Dahl
75. Bridget Jones's diary - Helen Fielding
76. The secret history - Donna Tartt (tbr)
77. The woman in white - Wilkie Collins (tbr)
78. Ulysses - James Joyce
79. Bleak house - Charles Dickens (tbr)
80. Double act - Jacqueline Wilson
81. The twits - Roald Dahl
82. I capture the castle - Dodie Smith (tbr)
83. Holes - Louis Sachar (coming from Tree)
84. Gormenghast - Mervyn Peake
85. The god of small things - Arundhati Roy
86. Vicky Angel - Jacqueline Wilson
87. Brave new world - Aldous Huxley
88. Cold comfort farm - Stella Gibbons
89. Magician - Raymond E. Feist
90. On the road - Jack Kerouac
91. The Godfather - Mario Puzo
92. The clan of the cave bear - Jean M. Auel
93. The colour of magic - Terry Pratchett
94. The Alchemist - Paulo Coelho
95. Katherine - Anya Seton
96. Kane and Abel - Jeffrey Archer
97. Love in the time of cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez (tbr)
98. Girls in love - Jacqueline Wilson
99. The princess diaries - Meg Cabot
100. Midnight's children - Salman Rushdie (tbr)

The ones that almost made it: 101 - 200 - 37/100

101. Three men in a boat - Jerome K. Jerome (tbr)
102. Small gods - Terry Pratchett
103. The beach - Alex Garland (tbr)
104. Dracula - Bram Stoker
105. Point Blanc - Anthony Horowitz
106. The Pickwick papers - Charles Dickens (tbr)
107. Stormbreaker - Anthony Horowitz
108. The wasp factory - Iain Banks
109. The day of the jackal - Frederick Forsyth
110. The illustrated mum - Jacqueline Wilson
111. Jude the obscure - Thomas Hardy (tbr)
112. The secret diary of Adrian Mole aged 13¾ - Sue Townsend
113. The cruel sea - Nicholas Monsarrat
114. Les miserables - Victor Hugo (tbr)
115. The mayor of Castorbridge - Thomas Hardy (tbr)
116. The dare game - Jacqueline Wilson
117. Bad girls - Jacqueline Wilson
118. The picture of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde (bookring)
119. Shogun - James Clavell
120. The day of the triffids - John Wyndham
121. Lola Rose - Jacqueline Wilson
122. Vanity fair - William Makepeace Thackeray (e-book)
123. The Forsyte saga - John Galsworthy (tbr)
124. House of leaves - Mark Z. Danielewski
125. The poisonwood bible - Barbara Kingsolver (coming from Katrinat)
126. Reaper man - Terry pratchett
127. Angus, Thongs and full-frontal snogging - Louise Rennison
128. The hound of the Baskervilles - Arthur Conan Doyle
129. Possession - A. S. Byatt
130. The master and Margarita - Mikhail Bulgakov
131. The handmaid's tale - Margaret Atwood
132. Danny the champion of the world - Roald Dahl
133. East of Eden - John Steinbeck
134. George's marvellous medicine - Roald Dahl
135. Wyrd sisters - Terry Pratchett
136. The colour purple - Alice Walker (tbr)
137. Hogfather - Terry Pratchett (tbr)
138. The thirty-nine steps - John Buchan
139. Girls in tears - Jacqueline Wilson
140. Sleepovers - Jacqueline Wilson
141. All quiet on the western front - Erich Maria Remarque (coming from Katrinat)
142. Behind the scenes at the museum - Kate Atkinson
143. High fidelity - Nick Hornby
144. It - Stephen King
145. James and the giant peach - Roald Dahl
146. The green mile - Stephen King
147. Papillon - Henri Charriere (tbr)
148. Men at arms - Terry Pratchett
149. Master and commander - Patrick O'Brian
150. Skeleton key - Anthony Horowitz
151. Soul music - Terry Pratchett
152. Thief of time - Terry Pratchett
153. The fifth elephant - Terry Pratchett
154. Atonement - Ian McEwan (tbr)
155. Secrets - Jacqueline Wilson
156. The silver sword - Ian Serraillier
157. One flew over the cuckoo's nest - Ken Kesey
158. Heart of darkness - Joseph Conrad
159. Kim - Rudyard Kipling (tbr)
160. Cross stitch - Diana Gabaldon
161. Moby Dick - Herman Melville (tbr)
162. River god - Wilbur Smith
163. Sunset song - Lewis Grassic Gibbon
164. The shipping news - Annie Proulx (bookring)
165. The world according to Garp - John Irving
166. Lorna Doone - R. D. Blackmore (tbr)
167. Girls out late - Jacqueline Wilson
168. The far pavilions - M. M. Kaye
169. The witches - Roald Dahl (tbr)
170. Charlotte's web - E. B. White
171. Frankenstein - Mary Shelley
172. They used to play on grass - Terry Venables and Gordon Williams
173. The old man and the sea - Ernest Hemingway
174. The name of the rose - Umberto Eco
175. Sophie's world - Jostein Gaarder
176. Dustbin baby - Jacqueline Wilson
177. Fantastic Mr. Fox - Roald Dahl
178. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
179. Jonathan Livingstone Seagull - Richard Bach
180. The little prince - Antoine de Saint-Exupery
181. The suitcase kid - Jacqueline Wilson
182. Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens (tbr)
183. The power of one - Bryce Courtenay
184. Silas Marner - George Eliot (tbr)
185. American Psycho - Brett Easton Ellis
186. The diary of a nobody - George and Weedon Grossmith
187. Trainspotting - Irvine Welsh
188. Goosebumps - R. L. Stine (tbr)
189. Heidi - Johanna Spyri
190. Sons and lovers - D. H. Lawrence (tbr)
191. The unbearable lightness of being - Milan Kundera
192. Man and boy - Tony Parsons
193. The truth - Terry Pratchett
194. The war of the worlds - H. G. Wells
195. The horse whisperer - Nicholas Evans
196. A fine balance - Rohinton Mistry
197. Witches abroad - Terry Pratchett
198. The once and future king - T. H. White
199. The very hungry caterpillar - Eric Carle
200. Flowers in the attic - Virginia Andrews

 

 

Comments

[Tree]

oh now you've gone and done it! I had to click on the link to see what was on the list and then I had to read through the list to see which ones I'd read. Now...I want a list with them all ticked off, lol!

Off to make my own list and see if I can work out how you did that highlighting thing!