List of the Day: The BBC's Big Read

In April 2003, the BBC's Big Read began the search for Britain’s best-loved novel. Viewers voted for their favorite book until December 13, 2003, when the final list was complete.

The Top 100 list is below. The contest tallied the top 200 vote-getters, with the books ranked 101 to 200 sometimes referred to as the Bigger Read. This is definitely a people’s choice list that, while it includes many very good books, reflects popular tastes as much as literary merits.

I have read 51 of the 100. I may never get through all of these because the list includes four Harry Potter books, too many kids books, and a lot of sci-fi. There are at least 29 that I do not plan to read. Those I have read are in red. Those currently on my TBR shelf are in blue.

If anyone else is tracking this list, please feel free to leave comment with a link to your progress report and I will add it to this post.

1. The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien

2. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen

3. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman

4. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams (reviewed here)

5. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, JK Rowling

6. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee

7. Winnie the Pooh, AA Milne

8. Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell

9. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, CS Lewis

10. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë

11. Catch-22, Joseph Heller

12. Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë

13. Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks

14. Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier (reviewed here)

15. The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger

16. The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame (reviewed here)

17. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens (reviewed here)

18. Little Women, Louisa May Alcott

19. Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres

20. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy

21. Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell

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

23. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, JK Rowling

24. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, JK Rowling

25. The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien

26. Tess of the D'Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy

27. Middlemarch, George Eliot

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 García Márquez

33. The Pillars of the Earth, Ken Follett

34. David Copperfield, Charles Dickens

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

41. Anne of Green Gables, LM Montgomery

42. Watership Down, Richard Adams

43. The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald

44. The Count of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas

45. Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh

46. Animal Farm, George Orwell

47. A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens

48. Far From the Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy

49. Goodnight Mister Tom, Michelle Magorian

50. The Shell Seekers, Rosamunde Pilcher (reviewed here)

51. The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett

52. Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck

53. The Stand, Stephen King

54. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy

55. A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth

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

61. Noughts and Crosses, Malorie Blackman

62. Memoirs of a Geisha, Arthur Golden

63. A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens

64. The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCollough

65. Mort, Terry Pratchett

66. The Magic Faraway Tree, Enid Blyton

67. The Magus, John Fowles (notes here)

68. Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman

69. Guards! Guards!, Terry Pratchett

70. Lord of the Flies, William Golding

71. Perfume, Patrick Süskind

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

77. The Woman in White, Wilkie Collins

78. Ulysses, James Joyce

79. Bleak House, Charles Dickens

80. Double Act, Jacqueline Wilson

81. The Twits, Roald Dahl

82. I Capture the Castle, Dodie Smith

83. Holes, Louis Sachar

84. Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake (reviewed here)

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 (reviewed here)

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 García Márquez

98. Girls in Love, Jacqueline Wilson

99. The Princess Diaries, Meg Cabot

100. Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie (reviewed here)


NOTES
 
List updated on January 4, 2019.

OTHERS READING THESE BOOKS

(If you would like to be listed here, please leave a comment with your links to any progress reports or reviews and I will add them here.) .

Mailbox Monday

Only two books came into my house last week, which is probably a good thing because, at the rate I had been going, I would have to live to 214 or so to read them all. Here is my very short Mailbox Monday list:

   

Aunts Aren't Gentlemen by P.G. Wodehouse (an impulse purchase), and 

Not a Muse: The Inner Lives of Women, a "world poetry anthology" edited by Kate Rogers and Viki Holmes. I am excited about this one because my friend Kirsten Rian gave it to me. She is one of the women poets whose work is included in the anthology, along with the likes of Margaret Atwood, Erica Jong, and other women poets who are probably famous but I wouldn't know because I am horrible about reading poetry. In fact, if it weren't for Kirsten sending a poem (only occasionally her own) to her email list every Monday, I would have to confess that I never read poetry. Now that will change. I will work my way through this anthology, including the three poems of Kirsten's that are included, and then feel very smug indeed. Here is the description from the publisher:

A bold, richly panoramic anthology of poetry from all over the world, exploring the inner lives of women in a post-feminist era. 516 pages of poetic delight by voices both celebrated and newly uncovered. Poetry to Seduce the Senses: Not A Muse was launched on the opening night of the Man Hong Kong International Literary Festival, on International Women's Day, 8 March 2009.

Review of the Day: The Brothers K

Four brothers, twin sisters, a father with minor league baseball in his blood, and a Bible thumping mother form the story skeleton of The Brothers K. David James Duncan packs a lot of meat on these bones in his very long, very elaborate, quasi-biographical novel of the Chance family of Camas, Washington.

The first half of the book centers on the baseball career of Hugh “Smoke” Chance, latter known as “Papa Toe” for reasons almost too outlandish to believe. Hugh’s life as a triple-A lefty pitcher stumbles along through interruptions great and small, as his family steadily adds children and his wife rides herd. This part of the book is an engaging account of growing up in small town America in the 1950s and early ‘60s. It has the same steady, powerful flow of the Columbia flowing past Camas.

Then, BAM! The second half of the book takes off. The contentious, argumentative oldest brother, Everett, becomes a campus radical and draft dodger. The scholarly and mystical Peter head off to India where he has a life-changing escapade. Lovable Irwin suffers a tragedy in Vietnam that becomes the focus of the book. One of the twins seems headed for a mental breakdown. Girlfriends and wives come and go. Conflicts between the mom and other family members escalate, but are then explained away in a final revelation so horrifying it almost derails the story. Kincade, the sturdiest brother, narrates the tale, but it is a roller coaster of an adventure.

The disparate pacing of the two halves of the book is its main weakness. It feels like two books. And even though many of the moving parts in the second half relate back to information provided in the first half, the second half is so chock-o-block full of action and ideas and characters that those little connections get lost in the flurry or lose their significance. Duncan may have been trying to demonstrate that the Vietnam war had just that kind of explosive effect on American families, but he could have done the same thing more effectively with about 200 fewer pages.

Duncan’s writing style has matured since his popular first novel, The River Why, but is still evocative, playful, witty, and erudite. The trouble is that there is just too much style involved. For example, he uses puns, limericks, and other word play (the title is a baseball reference – “K” meaning to strike out – as well as a nod to Dostoevsky); he incorporates fictional “primary source” materials such as letters, newspaper articles, and the children’s school essays; and he sets the story aside while characters – all remarkably eloquent and demonstrating eye popping levels of self-awareness – go off on state-of-the-universe soliloquies. A little of such tricks goes a long way. By the end of 650 or so pages, enough is enough.

Despite these flaws, The Brothers K is a beautiful story of family love; well told and worth the read. It just could have been shorter.  

OTHER REVIEWS

J.G. on Hotch Pot Cafe

(If you would like me to post a link to your review, please leave a comment with the link address and I will add it.)

Challenge Update: The Sunshine Smackdown -- Battle of the Prizes

We are right about in the middle of the Sunshine Smackdown -- Battle of the Prizes Challenge. As a reminder, this challenge pits Pulitzer Prize winners against National Book Award winners. Participants read one Pulitzer winner, one National winner, and one book that won both prizes. Details and sign up info are here. There is still plenty of time to read three books before Labor Day, when the Challenge ends. Sign up now if you want in on the summer fun! So far, the following reviews are in: Sophie's Choice on Chaotic Compendiums The Optimist's Daughter on Joy's Blog Middle Passage on Living Life and Reading Books Advise and Consent here on Rose City Reader Empire Falls on Chaotic Compendiums Gilead on Tip of the Iceberg

Preferences

The Booking Through Thursday theme this week is "Preferences," with these instructions: "Which do you prefer? (Quick answers–we’ll do more detail at some later date)." * Reading something frivolous? Or something serious? Usually serious. I definitely appreciate humor, even in a "serious" book, but don't usually pick up anything I would describe as frivolous. * Paperbacks? Or hardcovers? I'm the opposite of many readers -- I read paperbacks at home, where I can protect the covers from bends and creases, and cart around a hardback (without the dust jacket) to read at the gym or whenever needed. * Fiction? Or Nonfiction? About two parts fiction to one part non. * Poetry? Or Prose? Definitely prose, although I recognize this is a deficiency in my reading. * Biographies? Or Autobiographies? Usually biographies. * History? Or Historical Fiction? History. * Series? Or Stand-alones? Both. * Classics? Or best-sellers? Classics. * Lurid, fruity prose? Or straight-forward, basic prose? The latter. * Plots? Or Stream-of-Consciousness? PLOTS. * Long books? Or Short? Both -- variety, spice of life, etc. * Illustrated? Or Non-illustrated? Books have pictures? * Borrowed? Or Owned? Owned. I can't handle the responsibility. * New? Or Used? Usually used.