BBC’s “The Big Read”: Top 100

Posted April 2003; updated 2/16/2019.

image from readandsurvive.com

In April 2003 the BBC asked for nominations for the nation’s best-loved novels. The results of “The Big Read” were originally posted here, but are also listed here.

1. J.R.R. Tolkien The Lord of the Rings (trilogy: 1954-1955)
2. Jane Austen Pride and Prejudice (1813)
3. Philip Pullman His Dark Materials (trilogy: 1995-2000)
4. Douglas Adams The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (1979)
5. J.K. Rowling Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2000)
6. Harper Lee To Kill a Mockingbird (1960)
7. A.A. Milne Winnie-the-Pooh (1926)
8. George Orwell 1984 (1949)
9. C.S. Lewis The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (1970)
10. Charlotte Brontë Jane Eyre (1847)

11. Joseph Heller Catch-22 (1961)
12. Emily Brontë Wuthering Heights (1847)
13. Sebastian Faulk Birdsong (1993)
14. Daphne Du Maurier Rebecca (1938)
15. J.D. Salinger The Catcher in the Rye (1951)
16. William Grahame The Wind in the Willows (1908)
17. Charles Dickens Great Expectations (1861)
18. Louisa May Alcott Little Women (1869)
19. Louis DeBernieres Captain Corelli’s Mandolin (1994)
20. Leo Tolstoy War and Peace (1869)

21. Margaret Mitchell Gone with the Wind (1936)
22. J.K. Rowling Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (aka Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone) (1999)
23. J.K. Rowling Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (1998)
24. J.K. Rowling Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (1999)
25. J.R.R. Tolkien The Hobbit (1937)
26. Thomas Hardy Tess of the d’Urbervilles (1891)
27. George Eliot Middlemarch, a Study of Provincial Life (1872)
28. John Irving A Prayer for Owen Meany (1989)
29. John Steinbeck The Grapes of Wrath (1939)
30. Lewis Carroll Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865)

31. Jacqueline Wilson The Story of Tracy Beaker (1991)
32. Gabriel García Márquez One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967)
33. Ken Follet The Pillars of the Earth (1989)
34. Charles Dickens David Copperfield (1850)
35. Roald Dahl Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (1964)
36. Robert Louis Stevenson Treasure Island (1883)
37. Nevil Shute A Town Like Alice (1950)
38. Jane Austen Persuasion (1818)
39. Frank Herbert Dune (1965)
40. Jane Austen Emma (1816)

41. L.M. Montgomery Anne of Green Gables (1908)
42. Richard Adams Watership Down (1972)
43. F. Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby (1925)
44. Alexandre Dumas The Count of Monte Cristo (1844)
45. Evelyn Waugh Brideshead Revisited (1945)
46. George Orwell Animal Farm (1954)
47. Charles Dickens A Christmas Carol (1843)
48. Thomas Hardy Far from the Madding Crowd (1874)
49. Michelle Magorian Goodnight Mister Tom (1981)
50. Rosamunde Pitcher The Shell Seekers (1987)

51. Frances Hodgson Burnett The Secret Garden (1987)
52. John Steinbeck Of Mice and Men (1937)
53. Stephen King The Stand (1978)
54. Leo Tolstoy Anna Karenina (1877)
55. Vikram Seth A Suitable Boy (1993)
56. Roald Dahl The BFG (1982)
57. Arthur Ransome Swallows and Amazons (1930)
58. Anna Sewell Black Beauty (1877)
59. Eoin Colfer Artemis Fowl (series: 2001-2012)
60. Fyodor Dostoyevsky Crime and Punishment (1866)

61. Malorie Blackman Naughts and Crosses (2001)
62. Arthur Golden Memoirs of a Geisha (1997)
63. Charles Dickens A Tale of Two Cities (1859)
64. Colleen McCullough The Thorn Birds (1977)
65. Terry Pratchett Mort (1987)
66. Enid Blyton The Magic Faraway Tree (1943)
67. John Fowles The Magus (1965)
68. Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman Good Omens (1990)
69. Terry Pratchett Guards! Guards! (1989)
70. William Golding Lord of the Flies (1954)

71. Patrick Süskind Perfume (1985)
72. Robert Tressell The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists (1914)
73. Terry Pratchett Night Watch (2002)
74. Roald Dahl Matilda (1988)
75. Helen Fielding Bridget Jones’s Diary (1996)
76. Donna Tartt The Secret History (1992)
77. Wilkie Collins The Woman in White (1860)
78. James Joyce Ulysses (1922)
79. Charles Dickens Bleak House (1853)
80. Jacqueline Wilson Double Act (1995)

81. Roald Dahl The Twits (1980)
82. Dodie Smith I Capture the Castle (1948)
83. Louis Sachar Holes (1999)
84. Mervyn Peake Gormenghast (series: 1946-1956)
85. Arundhati Roy The God of Small Things (1997)
86. Jacqueline Wilson Vicky Angel (200)
87. Aldous Huxley Brave New World (1932)
88. Stella Gibbons Cold Comfort Farm (1932)
89. Raymond E. Feist Magician (1982)
90. Jack Kerouac On the Road (1957)

91. Mario Puzo The Godfather (1969)
92. Jean M. Auel The Clan of the Cave Bear (1980)
93. Terry Pratchett The Colour of Magic (1983)
94. Paulo Coelho O Alquimista (The Alchemist) (1987)
95. Anya Seton Katherine (1954)
96. Jeffrey Archer Kane and Abel (1979)
97. Gabriel García Márquez Love in the Time of Cholera (1985)
98. Jacqueline Wilson Girls in Love (1997)
99. Meg Cabot The Princess Diaries (2000)
100. Salman Rushdie Midnight’s Children (1981)

---

Philip Pullman's The Golden Compass (aka “Northern Lights”) published

First posted 6/26/2020.

The Golden Compass (aka “Northern Lights”) Philip Pullman

First Publication: July 9, 1995 Category: young adult fantasy novel Sales: ?

Accolades (click on badges to see full lists): Carnegie Medal (outstanding British children’s book) Guardian Prize for Children's Fiction

About the Book: Northern Lights, or The Golden Compass as it was called in North America, was a #1 New York Times bestseller published in 40 countries. BN It is a young-adult fantasy novel set in a universe in which humans’ souls exist outside of their bodies in the forms of talking animal spirits known as daemons. The story focuses on “a plucky, wild, courageous, amazing 12-year old girl named Lyra Belacqua [and] her beloved daemon Pantalaimon.” AZThey journey to the Arctic “where witch clans and armored bears rule” BN to find her friend, Roger, who has been kidnapped by the Gobblers. She also must face “her fearsome uncle Asriel [who] is trying to build a bridge to a parallel world.” BN The book deals with “political intrigue in a world VERY much like our own in crucial ways” AZ as well as theology and the Church, all in “the hands of an author who is a great storyteller.” AZ The book is the first in the trilogy, His Dark Materials, followed by The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass. In 2007, The Golden Compass was adapted into a feature film and in 2019, the BBC launched a television adaptation of His Dark Materials. Resources and Related Links: AZ Amazon WK Wikipedia