How many of the BBC top 100 books have you read?

[Bluemooninmyeyes1]

I came across this list yesterday and I’m ashamed to say I’ve only read about 15 and most of them are the Roald Dhal books and Harry Potter I’ve obviously read more than 15 books in my life but they just don’t appear on this list! I’m making a conscious effort to read more classics this year.

How many have you read?

www.bbc.co.uk/arts/bigread/top100.shtml

I found a couple of alternative lists.

Time Magazine's All-Time best 100 English language Novels from 1923 to 2005 from Goodreads

100 books everyone should read before they die from Business insider.

77, I’m old!

64. I think it would be a better list if only one book per author was included.

18 - a lot of the books are either children's/ teen books popular in the English language.

The others are -once again- popular English classics or fantasy... wher are historical novels?
I read books in 2 languages and would describe myself as avid reader - just not what the BBC suggests.

It would be interesting to see a list that ruled out anything published within, say, the last 30 years. I don't mean that recent novels can't be classics but I do think a lapse of time is needed to judge which will endure and which will be forgotten.

41 of the BBC list, and started a few others but never finished them. I really dislike Terry Pratchett and Thomas Hardy, and why would I have read Jacqueline Wilson?

Only 19 of McCrums list! I'm going to bookmark it and read a few more.

@ladyvimes I loved The Stand!! I’ve read it twice. Have you seen they’ve made it into a series on Prime? With Whoopi Goldberg and Alexander Skarsgård.

36, might make my way through that list this year.

There’s a sprinkling of historical novels if by that you mean books set in a more or less realistic past. Birdsong, Corelli, War and Peace, Pillars of the Earth, Katherine, Gone with the Wind, Perfume, Grapes of Wrath, Midnight’s Children, probably some others.

12. Most aren't to my taste at all. I read what I enjoy rather than what I think I should just because they're classics!

87. I've got an English Lit degree and I'm a secondary school teacher, so I've read a lot of classics but also a lot of young adult and children's fiction, of which there are many on that list.

Why Middlemarch does so well astounds me - long and tedious and barely a character you can have any sympathy with.

42 of them, am surprised at some of them.

@ClashCityRocker

64. I think it would be a better list if only one book per author was included.

Yep

I'd quite like it if the list was more, one/any book by a list of these 100 authors.

52 a few more I listened to rather than read.

24. I don't really have any desire to read any of the rest, except perhaps more Dickens and Hardy.

41 and two thirds!! The two thirds is Middlemarch which i didn't finish!! I think i read the first few pages of Perfume too and couldn't get into it!!

59 mainly the classics and kids books (although I'm too old for JW).

Agree it's very of its time and reflects a list of 'favourites' of people who don't read much. There are lots more interesting lists to use as a primer.

Time Magazine created a list 2 years later that has stood the test of time much better. Elena Ferrante did a top 40 women's books last year which is really interesting, lots I didn't know. Here's a top 100 of translated women which was created in response to Boyd Tonkin's book of the 100 best books in translation which had (surprise!) very few women on the list. Probably worth reading alongside the masculine list.

I can't remember.

try again. As soon as you see the words 'Tom Bombadil' jump ahead by 40 pages.

This is excellent advice re TLOTR
I've read 68 (bar about 40 pp of TLOTR ) and started another 5 or so and not finished them. It would be interesting to see this redone and see what changes.

Looks like a list for children. I'm never going to read Harry Potter as I was an adult when they were published. Ditto Jacqueline Wilson. Terry Pratchett or Tolkein have never appealed to me. Kane and Abel - someone has shoved that in for a laugh to see if it gets noticed. There are a lot I've started and given up on. Not a very well-rounded list.

62. But that's a strange list. I've not read any Jacqueline Wilson or Harry Potter.

11

It's a list made up by people who voted. I suspect many of them were children!

I remember that list at the time it was published walking around with it in my purse as reference. Some of those titles I’m too old for like the Jacqueline Wilson and some I don’t remember reading The Magic Faraway tree for example. I don’t think for a minute those represent the best anything just the most popular which is why all the Harry Potter is on there. I think I’ve read about 39