“The Big Read was a 2003 survey carried out by the BBC, with the goal of finding the “Nation’s Best-loved Book” 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.” — from the Wikipedia entry

The BBC’s page devoted to it is still fully functional and you can find it here.

I first found out about it the same year and have been keeping track of what books on the list I’ve read ever since.

The entire list consists of two hundred books, but I only include the first hundred here. For the rest, see the BBC site.

Read: 62/100

The BBC Big Read Top 100 (alphabetical order)

1. 1984 – George Orwell
2. The Alchemist – Paulo Coelho
3. Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland – Lewis Carroll
4. Animal Farm – George Orwell
5. Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy
6. Anne Of Green Gables – LM Montgomery
7. Artemis Fowl – Eoin Colfer
8. The BFG – Roald Dahl
9. Birdsong – Sebastian Faulks
10. Black Beauty – Anna Sewell
11. Bleak House – Charles Dickens
12. Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
13. Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh
14. Bridget Jones’s Diary – Helen Fielding
15. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis de Bernieres
16. Catch-22 – Joseph Heller
17. The Catcher In The Rye – JD Salinger
18. Charlie And The Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl
19. A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens
20. The Clan Of The Cave Bear – Jean M Auel
21. Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons
22. The Colour Of Magic – Terry Pratchett
23. The Count Of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas
24. Crime And Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky
25. David Copperfield – Charles Dickens
26. Double Act – Jacqueline Wilson
27. Dune – Frank Herbert
28. Emma – Jane Austen
29. Far From The Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy
30. Girls In Love – Jacqueline Wilson
31. The God Of Small Things – Arundhati Roy
32. The Godfather – Mario Puzo
33. Gone With The Wind – Margaret Mitchell
34. Good Omens – Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
35. Goodnight Mister Tom – Michelle Magorian
36. Gormenghast – Mervyn Peake
37. The Grapes Of Wrath – John Steinbeck
38. Great Expectations – Charles Dickens
39. The Great Gatsby – F Scott Fitzgerald
40. Guards! Guards! – Terry Pratchett
41. Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets – JK Rowling
42. Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire – JK Rowling
43. Harry Potter And The Philosopher’s Stone – JK Rowling
44. Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban – JK Rowling
45. His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman
46. The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy – Douglas Adams
47. The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien
48. Holes – Louis Sachar
49. I Capture The Castle – Dodie Smith
50. Jane Eyre – Charlotte Brontë
51. Kane And Abel – Jeffrey Archer
52. Katherine – Anya Seton
53. The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe – CS Lewis
54. Little Women – Louisa May Alcott
55. Lord Of The Flies – William Golding
56. The Lord Of The Rings – JRR Tolkien
57. Love In The Time Of Cholera – Gabriel García Márquez
58. The Magic Faraway Tree – Enid Blyton
59. Magician – Raymond E Feist
60. The Magus – John Fowles
61. Matilda – Roald Dahl
62. Memoirs Of A Geisha – Arthur Golden
63. Middlemarch – George Eliot
64. Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie
65. Mort – Terry Pratchett
66. Night Watch – Terry Pratchett
67. Noughts And Crosses – Malorie Blackman
68. Of Mice And Men – John Steinbeck
69. On The Road – Jack Kerouac
70. One Hundred Years Of Solitude – Gabriel García Márquez
71. Perfume – Patrick Süskind
72. Persuasion – Jane Austen
73. The Pillars Of The Earth – Ken Follett
74. A Prayer For Owen Meany – John Irving
75. Pride And Prejudice – Jane Austen
76. The Princess Diaries – Meg Cabot
77. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists – Robert Tressell
78. Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier
79. The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett
80. The Secret History – Donna Tartt
81. The Shell Seekers – Rosamunde Pilcher
82. The Stand – Stephen King
83. The Story Of Tracy Beaker – Jacqueline Wilson
84. A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth
85. Swallows And Amazons – Arthur Ransome
86. A Tale Of Two Cities – Charles Dickens
87. Tess Of The D’urbervilles – Thomas Hardy
88. The Thorn Birds – Colleen McCollough
89. To Kill A Mockingbird – Harper Lee
90. A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute
91. Treasure Island – Robert Louis Stevenson
92. The Twits – Roald Dahl
93. Ulysses – James Joyce
94. Vicky Angel – Jacqueline Wilson
95. War And Peace – Leo Tolstoy
96. Watership Down – Richard Adams
97. The Wind In The Willows – Kenneth Grahame
98. Winnie-the-Pooh – AA Milne
99. The Woman In White – Wilkie Collins
100. Wuthering Heights – Emily Brontë