“The BBC believes most people will have read only 6 of the 100 books listed here. Instructions: Copy this into your NOTES. Bold those books you’ve read in their entirety, italicize the ones you started but didn’t finish or read an excerpt. Tag other book nerds. Tag me as well so I can see your responses.”
Sounds simple enough, but I am not very good at following directions. First, I looked the list up, and this list was compiled by The Guardian in 2007 as Books you can’t live without, and I didn’t see anything about only a 6% read-rate for the general population. The BBC has a similar list, from 2003, but it’s called The Big Read – Top 100, billed as “the search for the nation’s [i.e., U.K.’s] best-loved novel, and we asked you to nominate your favourite books.” Since the books in both lists are popular, presumably they are actually widely-read. For an American perspective, I also found and included two lists on Random House’s Modern Library site of 100 Best Novels, one by the board and one by readers.
Consequently, 400 books are listed, but many are duplicated in two or more lists (and a couple within the same list, like Hamlet and the Complete Works of Shakespeare). This looked like a job for a database, so I created a MySQL db with tables for the lists, the rankings, whether a book was read, and the books themselves (287 unique titles, but counting separately ones listed both as a set and independently). I also created a reader table so that more than just my results could be recorded. However, to implement that part I still have to learn some more PHP-MySQL integration and put the whole thing on a website.
My read count for each list is
- Guardian (a/k/a “BBC-says-you’ve-only-read-6”) – 25
- BBC – 25
- ML/Board’s – 10
- ML/Readers’ – 20
Lists
| ranking | title | author | list | Read_Ind |
| 1 | Pride and Prejudice | Jane Austen | Books you can’t live without: the top 100 | |
| 2 | The Lord of the Rings | JRR Tolkien | Books you can’t live without: the top 100 | – Read |
| 3 | Jane Eyre | Charlotte Brontë | Books you can’t live without: the top 100 | |
| 4 | Harry Potter series | JK Rowling | Books you can’t live without: the top 100 | – Read |
| 5 | To Kill a Mockingbird | Harper Lee | Books you can’t live without: the top 100 | |
| 6 | The Bible | Books you can’t live without: the top 100 | – Read | |
| 7 | Wuthering Heights | Emily Bronte | Books you can’t live without: the top 100 | |
| 8 | His Dark Materials | Philip Pullman | Books you can’t live without: the top 100 | |
| 8 | Night Watch | Terry Pratchett | Books you can’t live without: the top 100 | |
| 10 | Great Expectations | Charles Dickens | Books you can’t live without: the top 100 | |
| 11 | Little Women | Louisa May Alcott | Books you can’t live without: the top 100 | |
| 12 | Tess of the dUrbervilles | Thomas Hardy | Books you can’t live without: the top 100 | |
| 13 | Catch-22 | Joseph Heller | Books you can’t live without: the top 100 | – Read |
| 14 | Complete Works of Shakespeare | William Shakespeare | Books you can’t live without: the top 100 | – Read |
| 15 | Rebecca | Daphne du Maurier | Books you can’t live without: the top 100 | |
| 16 | The Hobbit | JRR Tolkien | Books you can’t live without: the top 100 | – Read |
| 17 | Birdsong | Sebastian Faulks | Books you can’t live without: the top 100 | |
| 18 | Catcher in the Rye | JD Salinger | Books you can’t live without: the top 100 | – Read |
| 19 | The Time Travelers Wife | Audrey Niffenegger | Books you can’t live without: the top 100 | |
| 20 | Middlemarch | George Eliot | Books you can’t live without: the top 100 | |
| 21 | Gone with the Wind | Margaret Mitchell | Books you can’t live without: the top 100 | |
| 22 | The Great Gatsby | F Scott Fitzgerald | Books you can’t live without: the top 100 | – Read |
| 23 | Bleak House | Charles Dickens | Books you can’t live without: the top 100 | |
| 24 | War and Peace | Leo Tolstoy | Books you can’t live without: the top 100 | |
| 25 | THE HEART OF THE MATTER | Graham Greene | Books you can’t live without: the top 100 | |
| 26 | Brideshead Revisited | Evelyn Waugh | Books you can’t live without: the top 100 | |
| 27 | Crime and Punishment | Fyodor Dostoyevsky | Books you can’t live without: the top 100 | |
| 28 | Grapes of Wrath | John Steinbeck | Books you can’t live without: the top 100 | |
| 29 | Alices Adventures in Wonderland | Lewis Carroll | Books you can’t live without: the top 100 | |
| 30 | The Wind in the Willows | Kenneth Grahame | Books you can’t live without: the top 100 | |
| 31 | Anna Karenina | Leo Tolstoy | Books you can’t live without: the top 100 | |
| 32 | David Copperfield | Charles Dickens | Books you can’t live without: the top 100 | |
| 33 | Chronicles of Narnia | CS Lewis | Books you can’t live without: the top 100 | |
| 34 | Emma | Jane Austen | Books you can’t live without: the top 100 | |
| 35 | Persuasion | Jane Austen | Books you can’t live without: the top 100 | |
| 36 | The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe | CS Lewis | Books you can’t live without: the top 100 | – Read |
| 37 | The Kite Runner | Khaled Hosseini | Books you can’t live without: the top 100 | – Read |
| 38 | Captain Corellis Mandolin | Louis de Bernieres | Books you can’t live without: the top 100 | |
| 39 | Memoirs of a Geisha | Arthur Golden | Books you can’t live without: the top 100 | |
| 40 | Winnie the Pooh | AA Milne | Books you can’t live without: the top 100 | – Read |
| 41 | Animal Farm | George Orwell | Books you can’t live without: the top 100 | |
| 42 | The Da Vinci Code | Dan Brown | Books you can’t live without: the top 100 | – Read |
| 43 | One Hundred Years of Solitude | Gabriel Garcia Marquez | Books you can’t live without: the top 100 | |
| 44 | A Prayer for Owen Meaney | John Irving | Books you can’t live without: the top 100 | |
| 45 | The Woman in White | Wilkie Collins | Books you can’t live without: the top 100 | |
| 46 | Anne of Green Gables | LM Montgomery | Books you can’t live without: the top 100 | |
| 47 | Far From The Madding Crowd | Thomas Hardy | Books you can’t live without: the top 100 | |
| 48 | The Handmaids Tale | Margaret Atwood | Books you can’t live without: the top 100 | |
| 49 | Lord of the Flies | William Golding | Books you can’t live without: the top 100 | |
| 50 | Atonement | Ian McEwan | Books you can’t live without: the top 100 | – Read |
| 51 | Life of Pi | Yann Martel | Books you can’t live without: the top 100 | – Read |
| 52 | Dune | Frank Herbert | Books you can’t live without: the top 100 | – Read |
| 53 | Cold Comfort Farm | Stella Gibbons | Books you can’t live without: the top 100 | |
| 54 | Sense and Sensibility | Jane Austen | Books you can’t live without: the top 100 | |
| 55 | A Suitable Boy | Vikram Seth | Books you can’t live without: the top 100 | |
| 56 | The Shadow of the Wind | Carlos Ruiz Zafon | Books you can’t live without: the top 100 | |
| 57 | A Tale Of Two Cities | Charles Dickens | Books you can’t live without: the top 100 | |
| 58 | Brave New World | Aldous Huxley | Books you can’t live without: the top 100 | |
| 59 | The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time | Mark Haddon | Books you can’t live without: the top 100 | – Read |
| 60 | Love In The Time Of Cholera | Gabriel GarcÃa Márquez | Books you can’t live without: the top 100 | |
| 61 | Of Mice and Men | John Steinbeck | Books you can’t live without: the top 100 | |
| 62 | Lolita | Vladimir Nabokov | Books you can’t live without: the top 100 | |
| 63 | The Secret History | Donna Tartt | Books you can’t live without: the top 100 | |
| 64 | The Lovely Bones | Alice Sebold | Books you can’t live without: the top 100 | |
| 65 | The Count Of Monte Cristo | Alexandre Dumas | Books you can’t live without: the top 100 | – Read |
| 66 | On The Road | Jack Kerouac | Books you can’t live without: the top 100 | |
| 67 | Jude the Obscure | Thomas Hardy | Books you can’t live without: the top 100 | |
| 68 | Bridget Joness Diary | Helen Fielding | Books you can’t live without: the top 100 | – Read |
| 69 | Midnights Children | Salman Rushdie | Books you can’t live without: the top 100 | |
| 70 | Moby Dick | Herman Melville | Books you can’t live without: the top 100 | |
| 71 | Oliver Twist | Charles Dickens | Books you can’t live without: the top 100 | |
| 72 | Dracula | Bram Stoker | Books you can’t live without: the top 100 | |
| 73 | The Secret Garden | Frances Hodgson Burnett | Books you can’t live without: the top 100 | |
| 74 | Notes From A Small Island | Bill Bryson | Books you can’t live without: the top 100 | |
| 75 | Ulysses | James Joyce | Books you can’t live without: the top 100 | |
| 76 | The Bell Jar | Sylvia Plath | Books you can’t live without: the top 100 | |
| 77 | Swallows and Amazons | Arthur Ransome | Books you can’t live without: the top 100 | |
| 78 | Germinal | Emile Zola | Books you can’t live without: the top 100 | |
| 79 | Vanity Fair | William Makepeace Thackeray | Books you can’t live without: the top 100 | |
| 80 | Possession | AS Byatt | Books you can’t live without: the top 100 | |
| 81 | A Christmas Carol | Charles Dickens | Books you can’t live without: the top 100 | – Read |
| 82 | Cloud Atlas | David Mitchell | Books you can’t live without: the top 100 | – Read |
| 83 | The Clan Of The Cave Bear | Jean M Auel | Books you can’t live without: the top 100 | |
| 84 | The Remains of the Day | Kazuo Ishiguro | Books you can’t live without: the top 100 | |
| 85 | Madame Bovary | Gustave Flaubert | Books you can’t live without: the top 100 | |
| 86 | A Fine Balance | Rohinton Mistry | Books you can’t live without: the top 100 | |
| 87 | Charlottes Web | EB White | Books you can’t live without: the top 100 | – Read |
| 88 | The Five People You Meet In Heaven | Mitch Albom | Books you can’t live without: the top 100 | |
| 89 | Adventures of Sherlock Holmes | Sir Arthur Conan Doyle | Books you can’t live without: the top 100 | |
| 90 | The Faraway Tree Collection | Enid Blyton | Books you can’t live without: the top 100 | |
| 91 | Heart of Darkness | Joseph Conrad | Books you can’t live without: the top 100 | – Read |
| 92 | The Little Prince | Antoine de Saint-Exupery | Books you can’t live without: the top 100 | – Read |
| 93 | The Wasp Factory | Iain Banks | Books you can’t live without: the top 100 | |
| 94 | Watership Down | Richard Adams | Books you can’t live without: the top 100 | – Read |
| 95 | A Confederacy of Dunces | John Kennedy Toole | Books you can’t live without: the top 100 | |
| 96 | A Town Like Alice | Nevil Shute | Books you can’t live without: the top 100 | |
| 97 | The Three Musketeers | Alexandre Dumas | Books you can’t live without: the top 100 | |
| 98 | Hamlet | William Shakespeare | Books you can’t live without: the top 100 | – Read |
| 99 | Charlie and the Chocolate Factory | Roald Dahl | Books you can’t live without: the top 100 | |
| 100 | Les Misérables | Victor Hugo | Books you can’t live without: the top 100 | |
| 1 | The Lord of the Rings | JRR Tolkien | The Big Read – Top 100 | – Read |
| 2 | Pride and Prejudice | Jane Austen | The Big Read – Top 100 | |
| 3 | His Dark Materials | Philip Pullman | The Big Read – Top 100 | |
| 4 | The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy | Douglas Adams | The Big Read – Top 100 | – Read |
| 5 | Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire | JK Rowling | The Big Read – Top 100 | – Read |
| 6 | To Kill a Mockingbird | Harper Lee | The Big Read – Top 100 | |
| 7 | Winnie the Pooh | AA Milne | The Big Read – Top 100 | – Read |
| 8 | Night Watch | Terry Pratchett | The Big Read – Top 100 | |
| 9 | The Kite Runner | Khaled Hosseini | The Big Read – Top 100 | – Read |
| 10 | Jane Eyre | Charlotte Brontë | The Big Read – Top 100 | |
| 11 | Catch-22 | Joseph Heller | The Big Read – Top 100 | – Read |
| 12 | Wuthering Heights | Emily Bronte | The Big Read – Top 100 | |
| 13 | Birdsong | Sebastian Faulks | The Big Read – Top 100 | |
| 14 | Rebecca | Daphne du Maurier | The Big Read – Top 100 | |
| 15 | The Catcher in the Rye | JD Salinger | The Big Read – Top 100 | – Read |
| 16 | The Wind in the Willows | Kenneth Grahame | The Big Read – Top 100 | |
| 17 | Great Expectations | Charles Dickens | The Big Read – Top 100 | |
| 18 | Little Women | Louisa May Alcott | The Big Read – Top 100 | |
| 19 | Captain Corellis Mandolin | Louis de Bernieres | The Big Read – Top 100 | |
| 20 | War and Peace | Leo Tolstoy | The Big Read – Top 100 | |
| 21 | Gone with the Wind | Margaret Mitchell | The Big Read – Top 100 | |
| 22 | Harry Potter And The Philosophers Stone | JK Rowling | The Big Read – Top 100 | – Read |
| 23 | Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets | JK Rowling | The Big Read – Top 100 | – Read |
| 24 | Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban | JK Rowling | The Big Read – Top 100 | – Read |
| 25 | The Hobbit | JRR Tolkien | The Big Read – Top 100 | – Read |
| 26 | Tess of the dUrbervilles | Thomas Hardy | The Big Read – Top 100 | |
| 27 | Middlemarch | George Eliot | The Big Read – Top 100 | |
| 28 | A Prayer for Owen Meaney | John Irving | The Big Read – Top 100 | |
| 29 | The Grapes of Wrath | John Steinbeck | The Big Read – Top 100 | |
| 30 | Alices Adventures in Wonderland | Lewis Carroll | The Big Read – Top 100 | |
| 31 | The Story Of Tracy Beaker | Jacqueline Wilson | The Big Read – Top 100 | |
| 32 | One Hundred Years of Solitude | Gabriel Garcia Marquez | The Big Read – Top 100 | |
| 33 | The Pillars Of The Earth | Ken Follett | The Big Read – Top 100 | – Read |
| 34 | David Copperfield | Charles Dickens | The Big Read – Top 100 | |
| 35 | Charlie and the Chocolate Factory | Roald Dahl | The Big Read – Top 100 | |
| 36 | Treasure Island | Robert Louis Stevenson | The Big Read – Top 100 | |
| 37 | A Town Like Alice | Nevil Shute | The Big Read – Top 100 | |
| 38 | Persuasion | Jane Austen | The Big Read – Top 100 | |
| 39 | Dune | Frank Herbert | The Big Read – Top 100 | – Read |
| 40 | Emma | Jane Austen | The Big Read – Top 100 | |
| 41 | Anne of Green Gables | LM Montgomery | The Big Read – Top 100 | |
| 42 | Watership Down | Richard Adams | The Big Read – Top 100 | – Read |
| 43 | The Great Gatsby | F Scott Fitzgerald | The Big Read – Top 100 | – Read |
| 44 | The Count Of Monte Cristo | Alexandre Dumas | The Big Read – Top 100 | – Read |
| 45 | Brideshead Revisited | Evelyn Waugh | The Big Read – Top 100 | |
| 46 | Animal Farm | George Orwell | The Big Read – Top 100 | |
| 47 | A Christmas Carol | Charles Dickens | The Big Read – Top 100 | – Read |
| 48 | Far From The Madding Crowd | Thomas Hardy | The Big Read – Top 100 | |
| 49 | Goodnight Mister Tom | Michelle Magorian | The Big Read – Top 100 | |
| 50 | The Shell Seekers | Rosamunde Pilcher | The Big Read – Top 100 | |
| 51 | The Secret Garden | Frances Hodgson Burnett | The Big Read – Top 100 | |
| 52 | Of Mice and Men | John Steinbeck | The Big Read – Top 100 | |
| 53 | The Stand | Stephen King | The Big Read – Top 100 | – Read |
| 54 | Anna Karenina | Leo Tolstoy | The Big Read – Top 100 | |
| 55 | A Suitable Boy | Vikram Seth | The Big Read – Top 100 | |
| 56 | The BFG | Roald Dahl | The Big Read – Top 100 | – Read |
| 57 | Swallows and Amazons | Arthur Ransome | The Big Read – Top 100 | |
| 58 | Black Beauty | Anna Sewell | The Big Read – Top 100 | |
| 59 | Artemis Fowl | Eoin Colfer | The Big Read – Top 100 | |
| 60 | Crime and Punishment | Fyodor Dostoyevsky | The Big Read – Top 100 | |
| 61 | Noughts And Crosses | Malorie Blackman | The Big Read – Top 100 | |
| 62 | Memoirs of a Geisha | Arthur Golden | The Big Read – Top 100 | |
| 63 | A Tale Of Two Cities | Charles Dickens | The Big Read – Top 100 | |
| 64 | The Thorn Birds | Colleen McCollough | The Big Read – Top 100 | |
| 65 | Mort | Terry Pratchett | The Big Read – Top 100 | – Read |
| 66 | The Magic Faraway Tree | Enid Blyton | The Big Read – Top 100 | |
| 67 | The Magus | John Fowles | The Big Read – Top 100 | |
| 68 | Good Omens | Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaim | The Big Read – Top 100 | – Read |
| 69 | Guards! Guards! | Terry Pratchett | The Big Read – Top 100 | |
| 70 | Lord of the Flies | William Golding | The Big Read – Top 100 | |
| 71 | Perfume | Patrick Süskind | The Big Read – Top 100 | |
| 72 | The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists | Robert Tressell | The Big Read – Top 100 | |
| 73 | Night Watch | Terry Pratchett | The Big Read – Top 100 | |
| 74 | Matilda | Roald Dahl | The Big Read – Top 100 | |
| 75 | Bridget Joness Diary | Helen Fielding | The Big Read – Top 100 | – Read |
| 76 | The Secret History | Donna Tartt | The Big Read – Top 100 | |
| 77 | The Woman in White | Wilkie Collins | The Big Read – Top 100 | |
| 78 | Ulysses | James Joyce | The Big Read – Top 100 | |
| 79 | Bleak House | Charles Dickens | The Big Read – Top 100 | |
| 80 | Double Act | Jacqueline Wilson | The Big Read – Top 100 | |
| 81 | The Twits | Roald Dahl | The Big Read – Top 100 | |
| 82 | I Capture The Castle | Dodie Smith | The Big Read – Top 100 | |
| 83 | Holes | Louis Sachar | The Big Read – Top 100 | – Read |
| 84 | Gormenghast | Mervyn Peake | The Big Read – Top 100 | |
| 85 | The God Of Small Things | Arundhati Roy | The Big Read – Top 100 | |
| 86 | Vicky Angel | Jacqueline Wilson | The Big Read – Top 100 | |
| 87 | Brave New World | Aldous Huxley | The Big Read – Top 100 | |
| 88 | Cold Comfort Farm | Stella Gibbons | The Big Read – Top 100 | |
| 89 | Magician | Raymond E Feist | The Big Read – Top 100 | |
| 90 | On The Road | Jack Kerouac | The Big Read – Top 100 | |
| 91 | The Godfather | Mario Puzo | The Big Read – Top 100 | – Read |
| 92 | The Clan Of The Cave Bear | Jean M Auel | The Big Read – Top 100 | |
| 93 | The Colour Of Magic | Terry Pratchett | The Big Read – Top 100 | – Read |
| 94 | The Alchemist | Paulo Coelho | The Big Read – Top 100 | |
| 95 | Katherine | Anya Seton | The Big Read – Top 100 | |
| 96 | Kane And Abel | Jeffrey Archer | The Big Read – Top 100 | |
| 97 | Love In The Time Of Cholera | Gabriel GarcÃa Márquez | The Big Read – Top 100 | |
| 98 | Girls In Love | Jacqueline Wilson | The Big Read – Top 100 | |
| 99 | The Princess Diaries | Meg Cabot | The Big Read – Top 100 | |
| 100 | Midnights Children | Salman Rushdie | The Big Read – Top 100 | |
| 1 | Ulysses | James Joyce | 100 Best Novels – The Board’s List | |
| 2 | The Great Gatsby | F Scott Fitzgerald | 100 Best Novels – The Board’s List | – Read |
| 3 | A PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN | James Joyce | 100 Best Novels – The Board’s List | |
| 4 | Lolita | Vladimir Nabokov | 100 Best Novels – The Board’s List | |
| 5 | Brave New World | Aldous Huxley | 100 Best Novels – The Board’s List | |
| 6 | THE SOUND AND THE FURY | William Faulkner | 100 Best Novels – The Board’s List | |
| 7 | Catch-22 | Joseph Heller | 100 Best Novels – The Board’s List | – Read |
| 8 | DARKNESS AT NOON | Arthur Koestler | 100 Best Novels – The Board’s List | |
| 9 | SONS AND LOVERS | D.H. Lawrence | 100 Best Novels – The Board’s List | |
| 10 | The Grapes of Wrath | John Steinbeck | 100 Best Novels – The Board’s List | |
| 11 | UNDER THE VOLCANO | Malcolm Lowry | 100 Best Novels – The Board’s List | |
| 12 | THE WAY OF ALL FLESH | Samuel Butler | 100 Best Novels – The Board’s List | |
| 13 | 1984 | George Orwell | 100 Best Novels – The Board’s List | – Read |
| 14 | I Capture The Castle | Dodie Smith | 100 Best Novels – The Board’s List | |
| 15 | TO THE LIGHTHOUSE | Virginia Woolf | 100 Best Novels – The Board’s List | |
| 16 | AN AMERICAN TRAGEDY | Theodore Dreiser | 100 Best Novels – The Board’s List | |
| 17 | THE HEART IS A LONELY HUNTER | Carson McCullers | 100 Best Novels – The Board’s List | |
| 18 | SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE | Kurt Vonnegut | 100 Best Novels – The Board’s List | |
| 19 | INVISIBLE MAN | Ralph Ellison | 100 Best Novels – The Board’s List | |
| 20 | NATIVE SON | Richard Wright | 100 Best Novels – The Board’s List | |
| 21 | HENDERSON THE RAIN KING | Saul Bellow | 100 Best Novels – The Board’s List | |
| 22 | APPOINTMENT IN SAMARRA | John OHara | 100 Best Novels – The Board’s List | |
| 23 | U.S.A.(trilogy) | John Dos Passos | 100 Best Novels – The Board’s List | |
| 24 | WIDE SARGASSO SEA | Jean Rhys | 100 Best Novels – The Board’s List | |
| 25 | A PASSAGE TO INDIA | E.M. Forster | 100 Best Novels – The Board’s List | |
| 26 | THE WINGS OF THE DOVE | Henry James | 100 Best Novels – The Board’s List | |
| 27 | THE AMBASSADORS | Henry James | 100 Best Novels – The Board’s List | |
| 28 | TENDER IS THE NIGHT | F. Scott Fitzgerald | 100 Best Novels – The Board’s List | |
| 29 | THE STUDS LONIGAN TRILOGY | James T. Farrell | 100 Best Novels – The Board’s List | |
| 30 | THE GOOD SOLDIER | Ford Madox Ford | 100 Best Novels – The Board’s List | |
| 31 | Animal Farm | George Orwell | 100 Best Novels – The Board’s List | |
| 32 | THE GOLDEN BOWL | Henry James | 100 Best Novels – The Board’s List | |
| 33 | SISTER CARRIE | Theodore Dreiser | 100 Best Novels – The Board’s List | |
| 34 | A HANDFUL OF DUST | Evelyn Waugh | 100 Best Novels – The Board’s List | |
| 35 | AS I LAY DYING | William Faulkner | 100 Best Novels – The Board’s List | |
| 36 | ALL THE KINGS MEN | Robert Penn Warren | 100 Best Novels – The Board’s List | |
| 37 | THE BRIDGE OF SAN LUIS REY | Thornton Wilder | 100 Best Novels – The Board’s List | |
| 38 | HOWARDS END | E.M. Forster | 100 Best Novels – The Board’s List | – Read |
| 39 | GO TELL IT ON THE MOUNTAIN | James Baldwin | 100 Best Novels – The Board’s List | |
| 40 | THE HEART OF THE MATTER | Graham Greene | 100 Best Novels – The Board’s List | |
| 41 | Lord of the Flies | William Golding | 100 Best Novels – The Board’s List | |
| 42 | DELIVERANCE | James Dickey | 100 Best Novels – The Board’s List | |
| 43 | A DANCE TO THE MUSIC OF TIME (series) | Anthony Powell | 100 Best Novels – The Board’s List | |
| 44 | POINT COUNTER POINT | Aldous Huxley | 100 Best Novels – The Board’s List | |
| 45 | THE SUN ALSO RISES | Ernest Hemingway | 100 Best Novels – The Board’s List | |
| 46 | THE SECRET AGENT | Joseph Conrad | 100 Best Novels – The Board’s List | |
| 47 | NOSTROMO | Joseph Conrad | 100 Best Novels – The Board’s List | |
| 48 | THE RAINBOW | D.H. Lawrence | 100 Best Novels – The Board’s List | |
| 49 | WOMEN IN LOVE | D.H. Lawrence | 100 Best Novels – The Board’s List | |
| 50 | TROPIC OF CANCER | Henry Miller | 100 Best Novels – The Board’s List | |
| 51 | THE NAKED AND THE DEAD | Norman Mailer | 100 Best Novels – The Board’s List | |
| 52 | PORTNOYS COMPLAINT | Philip Roth | 100 Best Novels – The Board’s List | |
| 53 | PALE FIRE | Vladimir Nabokov | 100 Best Novels – The Board’s List | |
| 54 | LIGHT IN AUGUST | William Faulkner | 100 Best Novels – The Board’s List | |
| 55 | On The Road | Jack Kerouac | 100 Best Novels – The Board’s List | |
| 56 | THE MALTESE FALCON | Dashiell Hammett | 100 Best Novels – The Board’s List | |
| 57 | PARADES END | Ford Madox Ford | 100 Best Novels – The Board’s List | |
| 58 | THE AGE OF INNOCENCE | Edith Wharton | 100 Best Novels – The Board’s List | |
| 59 | ZULEIKA DOBSON | Max Beerbohm | 100 Best Novels – The Board’s List | |
| 60 | THE MOVIEGOER | Walker Percy | 100 Best Novels – The Board’s List | |
| 61 | DEATH COMES FOR THE ARCHBISHOP | Willa Cather | 100 Best Novels – The Board’s List | |
| 62 | FROM HERE TO ETERNITY | James Jones | 100 Best Novels – The Board’s List | |
| 63 | THE WAPSHOT CHRONICLES | John Cheever | 100 Best Novels – The Board’s List | |
| 64 | The Catcher in the Rye | JD Salinger | 100 Best Novels – The Board’s List | – Read |
| 65 | A CLOCKWORK ORANGE | Anthony Burgess | 100 Best Novels – The Board’s List | – Read |
| 66 | OF HUMAN BONDAGE | W. Somerset Maugham | 100 Best Novels – The Board’s List | |
| 67 | Heart of Darkness | Joseph Conrad | 100 Best Novels – The Board’s List | – Read |
| 68 | MAIN STREET | Sinclair Lewis | 100 Best Novels – The Board’s List | |
| 69 | THE HOUSE OF MIRTH | Edith Wharton | 100 Best Novels – The Board’s List | |
| 70 | THE ALEXANDRIA QUARTET | Lawrence Durell | 100 Best Novels – The Board’s List | |
| 71 | A HIGH WIND IN JAMAICA | Richard Hughes | 100 Best Novels – The Board’s List | |
| 72 | A HOUSE FOR MR BISWAS | V.S. Naipaul | 100 Best Novels – The Board’s List | |
| 73 | THE DAY OF THE LOCUST | Nathanael West | 100 Best Novels – The Board’s List | |
| 74 | A FAREWELL TO ARMS | Ernest Hemingway | 100 Best Novels – The Board’s List | – Read |
| 75 | SCOOP | Evelyn Waugh | 100 Best Novels – The Board’s List | – Read |
| 76 | THE PRIME OF MISS JEAN BRODIE | Muriel Spark | 100 Best Novels – The Board’s List | |
| 77 | FINNEGANS WAKE | James Joyce | 100 Best Novels – The Board’s List | |
| 78 | KIM | Rudyard Kipling | 100 Best Novels – The Board’s List | |
| 79 | A ROOM WITH A VIEW | E.M. Forster | 100 Best Novels – The Board’s List | – Read |
| 80 | Brideshead Revisited | Evelyn Waugh | 100 Best Novels – The Board’s List | |
| 81 | THE ADVENTURES OF AUGIE MARCH | Saul Bellow | 100 Best Novels – The Board’s List | |
| 82 | ANGLE OF REPOSE | Wallace Stegner | 100 Best Novels – The Board’s List | |
| 83 | A BEND IN THE RIVER | V.S. Naipaul | 100 Best Novels – The Board’s List | |
| 84 | THE DEATH OF THE HEART | Elizabeth Bowen | 100 Best Novels – The Board’s List | |
| 85 | LORD JIM | Joseph Conrad | 100 Best Novels – The Board’s List | |
| 86 | RAGTIME | E.L. Doctorow | 100 Best Novels – The Board’s List | |
| 87 | THE OLD WIVES TALE | Arnold Bennett | 100 Best Novels – The Board’s List | |
| 88 | THE CALL OF THE WILD | Jack London | 100 Best Novels – The Board’s List | |
| 89 | LOVING | Henry Green | 100 Best Novels – The Board’s List | |
| 90 | Middlemarch | George Eliot | 100 Best Novels – The Board’s List | |
| 91 | TOBACCO ROAD | Erskine Caldwell | 100 Best Novels – The Board’s List | |
| 92 | IRONWEED | William Kennedy | 100 Best Novels – The Board’s List | |
| 93 | The Magus | John Fowles | 100 Best Novels – The Board’s List | |
| 94 | WIDE SARGASSO SEA | Jean Rhys | 100 Best Novels – The Board’s List | |
| 95 | UNDER THE NET | Iris Murdoch | 100 Best Novels – The Board’s List | |
| 96 | SOPHIES CHOICE | William Styron | 100 Best Novels – The Board’s List | |
| 97 | THE SHELTERING SKY | Paul Bowles | 100 Best Novels – The Board’s List | |
| 98 | THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE | James M. Cain | 100 Best Novels – The Board’s List | |
| 99 | THE GINGER MAN | J.P. Donleavy | 100 Best Novels – The Board’s List | |
| 100 | THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS | Booth Tarkington | 100 Best Novels – The Board’s List | |
| 1 | ATLAS SHRUGGED | Ayn Rand | 100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List | – Read |
| 2 | THE FOUNTAINHEAD | Ayn Rand | 100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List | – Read |
| 3 | BATTLEFIELD EARTH | L. Ron Hubbard | 100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List | |
| 4 | The Lord of the Rings | JRR Tolkien | 100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List | – Read |
| 5 | To Kill a Mockingbird | Harper Lee | 100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List | |
| 6 | 1984 | George Orwell | 100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List | – Read |
| 7 | ANTHEM | Ayn Rand | 100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List | |
| 8 | WE THE LIVING | Ayn Rand | 100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List | – Read |
| 9 | MISSION EARTH | L. Ron Hubbard | 100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List | |
| 10 | FEAR | L. Ron Hubbard | 100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List | |
| 11 | Ulysses | James Joyce | 100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List | |
| 12 | Catch-22 | Joseph Heller | 100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List | – Read |
| 13 | The Great Gatsby | F Scott Fitzgerald | 100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List | – Read |
| 14 | Dune | Frank Herbert | 100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List | – Read |
| 15 | THE MOON IS A HARSH MISTRESS | Robert Heinlein | 100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List | – Read |
| 16 | STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND | Robert Heinlein | 100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List | – Read |
| 17 | A Town Like Alice | Nevil Shute | 100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List | |
| 18 | Brave New World | Aldous Huxley | 100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List | |
| 19 | The Catcher in the Rye | JD Salinger | 100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List | – Read |
| 20 | Animal Farm | George Orwell | 100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List | |
| 21 | GRAVITYS RAINBOW | Thomas Pynchon | 100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List | |
| 22 | The Grapes of Wrath | John Steinbeck | 100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List | |
| 23 | SISTER CARRIE | Theodore Dreiser | 100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List | |
| 24 | Gone with the Wind | Margaret Mitchell | 100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List | |
| 25 | Lord of the Flies | William Golding | 100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List | |
| 26 | SHANE | Jack Schaefer | 100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List | |
| 27 | TRUSTEE FROM THE TOOLROOM | Nevil Shute | 100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List | |
| 28 | A Prayer for Owen Meaney | John Irving | 100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List | |
| 29 | The Stand | Stephen King | 100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List | – Read |
| 30 | THE FRENCH LIEUTENANTS WOMAN | John Fowles | 100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List | |
| 31 | BELOVED | Toni Morrison | 100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List | |
| 32 | THE WORM OUROBOROS | E.R. Eddison | 100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List | |
| 33 | THE SOUND AND THE FURY | William Faulkner | 100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List | |
| 34 | Lolita | Vladimir Nabokov | 100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List | |
| 35 | MOONHEART | Charles de Lint | 100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List | |
| 36 | A Town Like Alice | Nevil Shute | 100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List | |
| 37 | OF HUMAN BONDAGE | W. Somerset Maugham | 100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List | |
| 38 | WISE BLOOD | Flannery OConnor | 100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List | |
| 39 | UNDER THE VOLCANO | Malcolm Lowry | 100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List | |
| 40 | FIFTH BUSINESS | Robertson Davies | 100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List | |
| 41 | SOMEPLACE TO BE FLYING | Charles de Lint | 100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List | |
| 42 | On The Road | Jack Kerouac | 100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List | |
| 43 | Heart of Darkness | Joseph Conrad | 100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List | – Read |
| 44 | YARROW | Charles de Lint | 100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List | |
| 45 | AT THE MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS | H.P. Lovecraft | 100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List | |
| 46 | ONE LONELY NIGHT | Mickey Spillane | 100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List | |
| 47 | MEMORY AND DREAM | Charles de Lint | 100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List | |
| 48 | TO THE LIGHTHOUSE | Virginia Woolf | 100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List | |
| 49 | THE MOVIEGOER | Walker Percy | 100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List | |
| 50 | TRADER | Charles de Lint | 100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List | |
| 51 | THE HEART OF THE MATTER | Graham Greene | 100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List | |
| 52 | THE HEART IS A LONELY HUNTER | Carson McCullers | 100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List | |
| 53 | The Great Gatsby | F Scott Fitzgerald | 100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List | – Read |
| 54 | BLOOD MERIDIAN | Cormac McCarthy | 100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List | |
| 55 | A CLOCKWORK ORANGE | Anthony Burgess | 100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List | – Read |
| 56 | ON THE BEACH | Nevil Shute | 100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List | |
| 57 | A PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN | James Joyce | 100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List | |
| 58 | GREENMANTLE | Charles de Lint | 100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List | |
| 59 | ENDERS GAME | Orson Scott Card | 100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List | |
| 60 | THE LITTLE COUNTRY | Charles de Lint | 100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List | |
| 61 | THE RECOGNITIONS | William Gaddis | 100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List | |
| 62 | STARSHIP TROOPERS | Robert Heinlein | 100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List | |
| 63 | THE SUN ALSO RISES | Ernest Hemingway | 100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List | |
| 64 | THE WORLD ACCORDING TO GARP | John Irving | 100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List | |
| 65 | SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES | Ray Bradbury | 100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List | |
| 66 | THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE | Shirley Jackson | 100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List | |
| 67 | AS I LAY DYING | William Faulkner | 100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List | |
| 68 | TROPIC OF CANCER | Henry Miller | 100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List | |
| 69 | INVISIBLE MAN | Ralph Ellison | 100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List | |
| 70 | THE WOOD WIFE | Terri Windling | 100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List | |
| 71 | The Magus | John Fowles | 100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List | |
| 72 | THE DOOR INTO SUMMER | Robert Heinlein | 100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List | |
| 73 | ZEN AND THE ART OF MOTORCYCLE MAINTENANCE | Robert Pirsig | 100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List | |
| 74 | I Capture The Castle | Dodie Smith | 100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List | |
| 75 | THE CALL OF THE WILD | Jack London | 100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List | |
| 76 | AT SWIM-TWO-BIRDS | Flann OBrien | 100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List | |
| 77 | FARENHEIT 451 | Ray Bradbury | 100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List | – Read |
| 78 | ARROWSMITH | Sinclair Lewis | 100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List | |
| 79 | Watership Down | Richard Adams | 100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List | – Read |
| 80 | NAKED LUNCH | William S. Burroughs | 100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List | |
| 81 | THE HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER | Tom Clancy | 100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List | – Read |
| 82 | GUILTY PLEASURES | Laurell K. Hamilton | 100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List | |
| 83 | THE PUPPET MASTERS | Robert Heinlein | 100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List | – Read |
| 84 | IT | Stephen King | 100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List | |
| 85 | V. | Thomas Pynchon | 100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List | |
| 86 | DOUBLE STAR | Robert Heinlein | 100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List | |
| 87 | CITIZEN OF THE GALAXY | Robert Heinlein | 100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List | |
| 88 | Brideshead Revisited | Evelyn Waugh | 100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List | |
| 89 | LIGHT IN AUGUST | William Faulkner | 100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List | |
| 90 | ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOOS NEST | Ken Kesey | 100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List | |
| 91 | A FAREWELL TO ARMS | Ernest Hemingway | 100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List | – Read |
| 92 | THE SHELTERING SKY | Paul Bowles | 100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List | |
| 93 | SOMETIMES A GREAT NOTION | Ken Kesey | 100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List | |
| 94 | MY ANTONIA | Willa Cather | 100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List | |
| 95 | MULENGRO | Charles de Lint | 100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List | |
| 96 | SUTTREE | Cormac McCarthy | 100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List | |
| 97 | MYTHAGO WOOD | Robert Holdstock | 100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List | |
| 98 | ILLUSIONS | Richard Bach | 100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List | |
| 99 | THE CUNNING MAN | Robertson Davies | 100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List | |
| 100 | THE SATANIC VERSES | Salman Rushdie | 100 Best Novels – The Readers’ List |
1 Pride and Prejudice Jane Austen READ
2 The Lord of the Rings JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre Charlotte Bronte Read more than once
4 Harry Potter series JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird Harper Lee Read more than once
6 The Bible Passages here and there
7 Wuthering Heights Emily Bronte Read more than once
=8 Nineteen Eighty-Four George Orwell Read
=8 His Dark Materials Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations Charles Dickens Read
11 Little Women Louisa M Alcott Read more than once
12 Tess of the d’Urbervilles Thomas Hardy
13 Catch-22 Joseph Heller Read
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare William Shakespeare
15 Rebecca Daphne Du Maurier Read more than once
16 The Hobbit JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye JD Salinger Read more than once
19 The Time Traveler’s Wife Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind Margaret Mitchell Read
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 Read
27 Crime and Punishment Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath John Steinbeck Read
29 Alice in Wonderland Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows Kenneth Grahame Read
31 Anna Karenina Leo Tolstoy Read
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 Bernières
39 Memoirs of a Geisha Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh AA Milne
41 Animal Farm George Orwell Read
42 The Da Vinci Code Dan Brown Read
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 Read
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 Read
55 A Suitable Boy Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities Charles Dickens Read
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 Read
62 Lolita Vladimir Nabokov Read
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 Read
74 Notes From A Small Island Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar Sylvia Plath Read
77 Swallows and Amazons Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair William Makepeace Thackeray Read
80 Possession AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol Charles Dickens Read more than once
82 Cloud Atlas David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple Alice Walker Read
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 Read
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 Read
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 Read
97 The Three Musketeers Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Roald Dahl Read
100 Les Misérables Victor Hugo Read
That’s it-took too much time…..what I read, I loved.