There's a list circulating on Facebook that supposed to be the BBC Big Read Top 100 (it's not though - the actual list can be found here) Book lists are an interesting animal - they usually contain quite a few books that I have actually read, but more often or not, they are made up of books I know I should read. Classics, such as Austen or Dickens, or books that everyone else is reading, such as "The Da Vinci Code" (just to see what all the fuss is about) Should I feel inferior if I haven't read the entire list, or even half of it? Or maybe I should take comfort in the fact that I don't read what the sheep read - I read what I want to.
And who votes for these things anyway, and why do they pick what they pick? Is Tolkien number one on every list because he is the best, or because people think that's who they should pick? The Big Read was supposed to be the nation's 'best loved' books. Best loved does not mean best, as in the best written, but the one book you love above all else, because it speaks to you, or you can relate to it, or because it's silly, throwaway entertainment that makes you happy. For me, my best loved book, would have to be "Flowers In The Attic" by Virginia Andrews, and the subsequent sequels. I have no idea why. From a critical point of view, its simplistic writing and melodramatic plots mean it's not going to be gracing the top spot on any list, but I have read it every year since I was 14, and each time I get sucked into the story and all else is forgotten. That to me, is the mark of a good book.
Here's that list, reorganised so that the ones I've actually read are first, with comments on some of them. The books in italics are books I own, but haven't read yet.
1 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
Well, duh. This is the one that always crops up at the top of any 'best of' list and it's easy to see why. It's a fantastic epic tale of brotherhood, war, fantasy; it's an example of exemplary writing - the descriptive skill of Tolkien is one to be admired - but best loved? It's such a slog to get through, even for those of us who devour books, and although it's beautifully written, sometimes you do wish that Tolkien would have left out half the description of the landscape.
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
This is a great example of what I was saying before. JK Rowling is not the best writer. Heck, she wouldn't even be in the top twenty of my list, but she's a great storyteller. Her books are loved, because she makes you really care about the story and the roles that the individual characters play. OK, so each book is pretty formulaic, the seventh book relies too much on deus ex machina and don't even get me started on her selling out to Hollywood, but I still enjoy the books on a purely entertainment level.
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
Is it wrong for me to love the prequel more than the trilogy? After all, "Lord Of The Rings "regularly tops these kind of lists, whereas "The Hobbit" is a lowly number 16, so surely I must be wrong, giving all my love to this one? In my opinion, "The Hobbit" showcases all the talent of Tolkien, but with a much more relatable story. It's the tale of one little hobbit and the adventure he takes to become more than he ever thought he could be, without the grandiose battles of the trilogy, and the subtext of industrialisation.
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
When I first read this, I fell in love with it. I laughed, I cried, I wanted to wrap myself in this story and never leave. It's a beautiful tale of love, an eternal love that can never be eternal, due to circumstances beyond the protagonist control. I defend this book to all those I came across who didn't like it, for whatever reason. This was my new favourite book. Then I read it again. Oh, how disappointed I was. It's the perfect example of how I read - first, I read emotionally, taking in the story and the characters. Then I read, critically. I noticed the bad writing, the repetition of unnecessary points, the lack of details about the characters and the contradictions.... there's a great diatribe about this here - it covers a lot of what I think, although a lot harsher!
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
This book, along with some of Douglas Adams' writing, really changed my view on religion. It's a sign of a good book that can convey exactly what you think, without even realising that you think it.
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
As someone who is petrified about what happens after we die, I found this book oddly comforting. To read about someone's idea of heaven, or of an afterlife, made my own fears subside slightly, knowing that maybe the blackness I foresee may not be true.
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
The only book it took me years to finish reading. Maybe it's one of those books that you need to read at a certain time of your life, but all I know is that at 16 I couldn't get into it at all. It was better at 24, but I wouldn't say I'm in a hurry to read it again. I can understand the rambling style mirrors the rambling nature of the characters, and that it's a book very much 'of it's time' but will it be on the top 100 lists in ten, twenty, fifty years time?
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
2 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
6 The Bible
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk
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
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
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 Zifon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Inferno - Dante
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
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
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
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo
And who votes for these things anyway, and why do they pick what they pick? Is Tolkien number one on every list because he is the best, or because people think that's who they should pick? The Big Read was supposed to be the nation's 'best loved' books. Best loved does not mean best, as in the best written, but the one book you love above all else, because it speaks to you, or you can relate to it, or because it's silly, throwaway entertainment that makes you happy. For me, my best loved book, would have to be "Flowers In The Attic" by Virginia Andrews, and the subsequent sequels. I have no idea why. From a critical point of view, its simplistic writing and melodramatic plots mean it's not going to be gracing the top spot on any list, but I have read it every year since I was 14, and each time I get sucked into the story and all else is forgotten. That to me, is the mark of a good book.
Here's that list, reorganised so that the ones I've actually read are first, with comments on some of them. The books in italics are books I own, but haven't read yet.
1 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
Well, duh. This is the one that always crops up at the top of any 'best of' list and it's easy to see why. It's a fantastic epic tale of brotherhood, war, fantasy; it's an example of exemplary writing - the descriptive skill of Tolkien is one to be admired - but best loved? It's such a slog to get through, even for those of us who devour books, and although it's beautifully written, sometimes you do wish that Tolkien would have left out half the description of the landscape.
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
This is a great example of what I was saying before. JK Rowling is not the best writer. Heck, she wouldn't even be in the top twenty of my list, but she's a great storyteller. Her books are loved, because she makes you really care about the story and the roles that the individual characters play. OK, so each book is pretty formulaic, the seventh book relies too much on deus ex machina and don't even get me started on her selling out to Hollywood, but I still enjoy the books on a purely entertainment level.
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
Is it wrong for me to love the prequel more than the trilogy? After all, "Lord Of The Rings "regularly tops these kind of lists, whereas "The Hobbit" is a lowly number 16, so surely I must be wrong, giving all my love to this one? In my opinion, "The Hobbit" showcases all the talent of Tolkien, but with a much more relatable story. It's the tale of one little hobbit and the adventure he takes to become more than he ever thought he could be, without the grandiose battles of the trilogy, and the subtext of industrialisation.
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
When I first read this, I fell in love with it. I laughed, I cried, I wanted to wrap myself in this story and never leave. It's a beautiful tale of love, an eternal love that can never be eternal, due to circumstances beyond the protagonist control. I defend this book to all those I came across who didn't like it, for whatever reason. This was my new favourite book. Then I read it again. Oh, how disappointed I was. It's the perfect example of how I read - first, I read emotionally, taking in the story and the characters. Then I read, critically. I noticed the bad writing, the repetition of unnecessary points, the lack of details about the characters and the contradictions.... there's a great diatribe about this here - it covers a lot of what I think, although a lot harsher!
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
This book, along with some of Douglas Adams' writing, really changed my view on religion. It's a sign of a good book that can convey exactly what you think, without even realising that you think it.
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
As someone who is petrified about what happens after we die, I found this book oddly comforting. To read about someone's idea of heaven, or of an afterlife, made my own fears subside slightly, knowing that maybe the blackness I foresee may not be true.
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
The only book it took me years to finish reading. Maybe it's one of those books that you need to read at a certain time of your life, but all I know is that at 16 I couldn't get into it at all. It was better at 24, but I wouldn't say I'm in a hurry to read it again. I can understand the rambling style mirrors the rambling nature of the characters, and that it's a book very much 'of it's time' but will it be on the top 100 lists in ten, twenty, fifty years time?
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
2 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
6 The Bible
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk
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
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
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 Zifon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Inferno - Dante
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
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
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
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo
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