The Big Read
# The Big Read

The Big Read was a survey on books carried out by the BBC in the United Kingdom in 2003, where over three-quarters of a million votes were received from the British public to find the nation's best-loved novel. The year-long survey was the biggest single test of public reading taste to date, and culminated with several programmes hosted by celebrities, advocating their favourite books.

## Purpose

The BBC started the Big Read with the goal of finding the "Nation's Best-loved Novel" by way of a viewer vote via the Web, SMS, and telephone. The show attracted controversy for adopting an allegedly sensationalist approach to literature, but supporters praised it for raising the public awareness of reading. The British public voted originally for any novel that they wished. From this, a list of 200 was drawn up, with the highest 21 then put forward for further voting, on the provision that only one book per author was permitted in the top 21. As the poll was based on novels, the plays of William Shakespeare were not part of the survey.

## Top 200 novels in the United Kingdom

* The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien
* Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
* His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman
* The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
* Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J. K. Rowling
* To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
* Winnie-the-Pooh by A. A. Milne
* Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
* The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis
* Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
* Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
* Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
* Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks
* Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
* The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger
* The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
* Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
* Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
* Captain Corelli's Mandolin by Louis de Bernières
* War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
* Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
* Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone by J. K. Rowling
* Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J. K. Rowling
* Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J. K. Rowling
* The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien
* Tess of the d'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
* Middlemarch by George Eliot
* A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving
* The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
* Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
* The Story of Tracy Beaker by Jacqueline Wilson
* One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez
* The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
* David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
* Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl
* Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson
* A Town Like Alice by Nevil Shute
* Persuasion by Jane Austen
* Dune by Frank Herbert
* Emma by Jane Austen
* Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery
* Watership Down by Richard Adams
* The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
* The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
* Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh
* Animal Farm by George Orwell
* A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
* Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy
* Goodnight Mister Tom by Michelle Magorian
* The Shell Seekers by Rosamunde Pilcher
* The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
* Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
* The Stand by Stephen King
* Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
* A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth
* The BFG by Roald Dahl
* Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome
* Black Beauty by Anna Sewell
* Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer
* Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
* Noughts & Crosses by Malorie Blackman
* Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden
* A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
* The Thorn Birds by Colleen McCullough
* Mort by Terry Pratchett
* The Magic Faraway Tree by Enid Blyton
* The Magus by John Fowles
* Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett
* Guards! Guards! by Terry Pratchett
* Lord of the Flies by William Golding
* Perfume by Patrick Süskind
* The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists by Robert Tressell
* Night Watch by Terry Pratchett
* Matilda by Roald Dahl
* Bridget Jones's Diary by Helen Fielding
* The Secret History by Donna Tartt
* The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins
* Ulysses by James Joyce
* Bleak House by Charles Dickens
* Double Act by Jacqueline Wilson
* The Twits by Roald Dahl
* I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith
* Holes by Louis Sachar
* Gormenghast by Mervyn Peake
* The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
* Vicky Angel by Jacqueline Wilson
* Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
* Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons
* Magician by Raymond E. Feist
* On the Road by Jack Kerouac
* The Godfather by Mario Puzo
* The Clan of the Cave Bear by Jean M. Auel
* The Colour of Magic by Terry Pratchett
* The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
* Katherine by Anya Seton
* Kane and Abel by Jeffrey Archer
* Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez
* Girls in Love by Jacqueline Wilson
* The Princess Diaries by Meg Cabot
* Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie
* Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome
* Small Gods by Terry Pratchett
* The Beach by Alex Garland
* Dracula by Bram Stoker
* Point Blanc by Anthony Horowitz
* The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens
* Stormbreaker by Anthony Horowitz
* The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks
* The Day of the Jackal by Frederick Forsyth
* The Illustrated Mum by Jacqueline Wilson
* Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy
* The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13¾ by Sue Townsend
* The Cruel Sea by Nicholas Monsarrat
* Les Misérables by Victor Hugo
* The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy
* The Dare Game by Jacqueline Wilson
* Bad Girls by Jacqueline Wilson
* The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
* Shōgun by James Clavell
* The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham
* Lola Rose by Jacqueline Wilson
* Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray
* The Forsyte Saga by John Galsworthy
* House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski
* The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
* Reaper Man by Terry Pratchett
* Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging by Louise Rennison
* The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle
* Possession: A Romance by A. S. Byatt
* The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
* The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
* Danny, the Champion of the World by Roald Dahl
* East of Eden by John Steinbeck
* George's Marvellous Medicine by Roald Dahl
* Wyrd Sisters by Terry Pratchett
* The Color Purple by Alice Walker
* Hogfather by Terry Pratchett
* The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan
* Girls in Tears by Jacqueline Wilson
* Sleepovers by Jacqueline Wilson
* All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque
* Behind the Scenes at the Museum by Kate Atkinson
* High Fidelity by Nick Hornby
* It by Stephen King
* James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
* The Green Mile by Stephen King
* Papillon by Henri Charrière
* Men at Arms by Terry Pratchett
* Master and Commander by Patrick O'Brian
* Skeleton Key by Anthony Horowitz
* Soul Music by Terry Pratchett
* Thief of Time by Terry Pratchett
* The Fifth Elephant by Terry Pratchett
* Atonement by Ian McEwan
* Secrets by Jacqueline Wilson
* The Silver Sword by Ian Serraillier
* One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey
* Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
* Kim by Rudyard Kipling
* Cross Stitch by Diana Gabaldon
* Moby-Dick by Herman Melville
* River God by Wilbur Smith
* Sunset Song by Lewis Grassic Gibbon
* The Shipping News by E. Annie Proulx
* The World According to Garp by John Irving
* Lorna Doone by R. D. Blackmore
* Girls Out Late by Jacqueline Wilson
* The Far Pavilions by M. M. Kaye
* The Witches by Roald Dahl
* Charlotte's Web by E. B. White
* Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
* They Used to Play on Grass by Terry Venables and Gordon Williams
* The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
* The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
* Sophie's World by Jostein Gaarder
* Dustbin Baby by Jacqueline Wilson
* Fantastic Mr Fox by Roald Dahl
* Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
* Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach
* The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
* The Suitcase Kid by Jacqueline Wilson
* Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
* The Power of One by Bryce Courtenay
* Silas Marner by George Eliot
* American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis
* The Diary of a Nobody by George and Weedon Grossmith
* Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh
* Goosebumps by R. L. Stine
* Heidi by Johanna Spyri
* Sons and Lovers by D. H. Lawrence
* The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera
* Man and Boy by Tony Parsons
* The Truth by Terry Pratchett
* The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells
* The Horse Whisperer by Nicholas Evans
* A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry
* Witches Abroad by Terry Pratchett
* The Once and Future King by T. H. White
* The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle
* Flowers in the Attic by V. C. Andrews

## Authors with multiple novels on the list

### Multiple novels in the Top 25

In the first stage, all four extant Harry Potter novels by J. K. Rowling were among the 25 leaders. So were both Middle-earth novels by J. R. R. Tolkien. The second stage featured 21 books by distinct authors: the top 25 with Rowling represented only by her fourth volume, Goblet of Fire, and Tolkien only by The Lord of the Rings. Those two novels finally placed fifth and first; the other preliminary leaders by Rowling and Tolkien nominally led the also-rans in ranks 22–25.

### Multiple novels in the Top 50

* Four: J. K. Rowling
* Three: Jane Austen, Charles Dickens
* Two: Thomas Hardy, George Orwell, J. R. R. Tolkien

### Multiple novels in the Top 100

* Five: Charles Dickens, Terry Pratchett
* Four: Roald Dahl, J. K. Rowling, Jacqueline Wilson
* Three: Jane Austen
* Two: Thomas Hardy, Gabriel García Márquez, George Orwell, John Steinbeck, J. R. R. Tolkien, Leo Tolstoy

### Multiple novels in the Top 200

* Fifteen: Terry Pratchett
* Fourteen: Jacqueline Wilson
* Nine: Roald Dahl
* Seven: Charles Dickens
* Four: Thomas Hardy, J. K. Rowling
* Three: Jane Austen, Anthony Horowitz, Stephen King, John Steinbeck
* Two: George Eliot, John Irving, Gabriel García Márquez, George Orwell, J. R. R. Tolkien, Leo Tolstoy

## Similar contests

Contests similar to the Big Read were conducted in other countries:

* My Favourite Book in Australia
* Das große Lesen in Germany
* A Nagy Könyv ("The Big Book") in Hungary
* Голямото четене ("The Big Read") in Bulgaria
* Lielā Lasīšana ("The Big Read") in Latvia
* The Great American Read

Other lists:

* Le Monde's 100 Books of the Century
* Literature portal
* Books portal
