BBC's Big Read Top 100

BBC Big Read Top 100

Alphabetical Listing

The nation has spoken! And what we have said is that we love our classics, we love the books that stay with us from childhood and we love a gripping saga too. We might buy crime novels by the million, but when it came to voting not a single one made the British public's list of best-loved books. Science fiction is represented, though, with great writing from authors such as Frank Herbert and Raymon E Feist. The big nineteenth century names such as Austen, Dickens and the Brontes feature heavily, alongside modern classics from the last two decades such as Arthur Golden's Memoirs of a Geisha and Patrick Suskind's Perfume. The big winner in the BBC Big Read Top 100 has to be children's fiction, which has 30 books on the list. Classics like Alice in Wonderland, The Wind in the Willows and Winnie the Pooh rub shoulders with the best in modern children's writing by authors including Jacqueline Wilson, J K Rowling and Philip Pullman.

The full list of the Top 100 best-loved novels is:

Douglas Adams The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, amazon.ca, amazon.com
Richard Adams Watership Down, amazon.ca, amazon.com
Louisa May Alcott Little Women, amazon.ca, amazon.com
Jeffery Archer Kane and Abel, amazon.ca, amazon.com
Jean M Auel The Clan of the Cave Bear, amazon.ca, amazon.com
Jane Austen Emma, amazon.ca, amazon.com
Jane Austen Persuasion, amazon.ca, amazon.com
Jane Austen Pride and Prejudice, amazon.ca, amazon.com
Malorie Blackman Noughts and Crosses, amazon.ca, amazon.com
Enid Blyton The Magic Faraway Tree, amazon.ca, amazon.com
Charlotte Bronte Jane Eyre, amazon.ca, amazon.com
Emily Bronte Wuthering Heights, amazon.ca, amazon.com
Frances Hodgson Burnett The Secret Garden, amazon.ca, amazon.com
Meg Cabot The Princess Diaries, amazon.ca, amazon.com
Lewis Carroll Alice in Wonderland, amazon.ca, amazon.com
Paulo Coelho The Alchemist, amazon.ca, amazon.com
Eoin Colfer Artemis Fowl, amazon.ca, amazon.com
Wilkie Collins The Woman in White, amazon.ca, amazon.com
Roald Dahl The BFG, amazon.ca, amazon.com
Roald Dahl Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, amazon.ca, amazon.com
Roald Dahl Matilda, amazon.ca, amazon.com
Roald Dahl The Twits, amazon.ca, amazon.com
Louis De Bernieres Captain Corelli's Mandolin, amazon.ca, amazon.com
Charles Dickens Bleak House, amazon.ca, amazon.com
Charles Dickens A Christmas Carol, amazon.ca, amazon.com
Charles Dickens David Copperfield, amazon.ca, amazon.com
Charles Dickens Great Expectations, amazon.ca, amazon.com
Charles Dickens A Tale of Two Cities, amazon.ca, amazon.com
Fyodor Dostoyevsky Crime and Punishment, amazon.ca, amazon.com
Daphne Du Maurier Rebecca, amazon.ca, amazon.com
Alexandre Dumas The Count of Monte Cristo, amazon.ca, amazon.com
George Eliot Middlemarch, amazon.ca, amazon.com
Sebastian Faulks Birdsong, amazon.ca, amazon.com
Raymond E Feist Magician, amazon.ca, amazon.com
Helen Fielding Bridge Jones's Diary, amazon.ca, amazon.com
F Scott Fitzerald The Great Gatsby, amazon.ca, amazon.com
Ken Follett The Pillars of the Earth, amazon.ca, amazon.com
John Fowles The Magus, amazon.ca, amazon.com
Stella Gibbons Cold Comfort Farm, amazon.ca, amazon.com
Arthur Golden Memoirs of a Geisha, amazon.ca, amazon.com
William Golding The Lord of the Flies, amazon.ca, amazon.com
Kenneth Grahame The Wind in the Willows, amazon.ca, amazon.com
Thomas Hardy Far from the Madding Crowd, amazon.ca, amazon.com
Thomas Hardy Tess of the D'Urbevilles, amazon.ca, amazon.com
Joseph Heller Catch 22, amazon.ca, amazon.com
Frank Herbert Dune, amazon.ca, amazon.com
Aldous Huxley Brave New World, amazon.ca, amazon.com
John Irving A Prayer for Owen Meany, amazon.ca, amazon.com
James Joyce Ulysses, amazon.ca, amazon.com
Jack Kerouac On the Road, amazon.ca, amazon.com
Stephen King The Stand, amazon.ca, amazon.com
Harper Lee To Kill a Mockingbird, amazon.ca, amazon.com
C S Lewis The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, amazon.ca, amazon.com
Michelle Magorian Goodnight Mister Tom, amazon.ca, amazon.com
Gabriel Garcia Marquez Love in the Time of Cholera, amazon.ca, amazon.com
Gabriel Garcia Marquez One Hundred Years of Solitude, amazon.ca, amazon.com
Colleen McCullough The Thorn Birds, amazon.ca, amazon.com
A A Milne Winnie the Pooh, amazon.ca, amazon.com
Margaret Mitchell Gone with the Wind, amazon.ca, amazon.com
L M Montgomery Anne of Green Gables, amazon.ca, amazon.com
George Orwell 1984, amazon.ca, amazon.com
George Orwell Animal Farm, amazon.ca, amazon.com
Mervyn Peake Gormenghast, amazon.ca, amazon.com
Rosamunde Pilcher The Shell Seekers, amazon.ca, amazon.com
Terry Pratchett The Colour of Magic, amazon.ca, amazon.com
Terry Pratchett Good Omens, amazon.ca, amazon.com
Terry Pratchett Guards! Guards!, amazon.ca, amazon.com
Terry Pratchett Mort, amazon.ca, amazon.com
Terry Pratchett Night Watch, amazon.ca, amazon.com
Philip Pullman His Dark Materials, amazon.ca, amazon.com
Mario Puzo The Godfather, amazon.ca, amazon.com
Arthur Ransome Swallows and Amazons, amazon.ca, amazon.com
J K Rowling Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, amazon.ca, amazon.com
J K Rowling Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, amazon.ca, amazon.com
J K Rowling Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, amazon.ca, amazon.com
J K Rowling Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, amazon.ca, amazon.com
Arundhati Roy The God of Small Things, amazon.ca, amazon.com
Salman Rushdie Midnight's Children, amazon.ca, amazon.com
Louis Sachar Holes, amazon.ca, amazon.com
J D Salinger The Catcher in the Rye, amazon.ca, amazon.com
Vikram Seth A Suitable Boy, amazon.ca, amazon.com
Anya Seton Katherine, amazon.ca, amazon.com
Anna Sewell Black Beauty, amazon.ca, amazon.com
Nevile Shute A Town Like Alice, amazon.ca, amazon.com
Dodie Smith I Capture the Castle, amazon.ca, amazon.com
John Steinbeck The Grapes of Wrath, amazon.ca, amazon.com
John Steinbeck Of Mice and Men, amazon.ca, amazon.com
Robert Louis Stevenson Treasure Island, amazon.ca, amazon.com
Patrick Suskind Perfume, amazon.ca, amazon.com
Donna Tartt The Secret History, amazon.ca, amazon.com
J R R Tolkien The Hobbit, amazon.ca, amazon.com
J R R Tolkien The Lord of the Rings, amazon.ca, amazon.com
Leo Tolstoy Anna Karenina, amazon.ca, amazon.com
Leo Tolstoy War and Peace, amazon.ca, amazon.com
Robert Tressell The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, amazon.ca, amazon.com
Evelyn Waugh Brideshead Revisited, amazon.ca, amazon.com
Jacqueline Wilson Double Act, amazon.ca, amazon.com
Jacqueline Wilson Girls in Love, amazon.ca, amazon.com
Jacqueline Wilson The Story of Tracy Beaker, amazon.ca, amazon.com
Jacqueline Wilson Vicky Angel, amazon.ca, amazon.com