The Cellar - View Single Post

Sundae · 04-07-2011, 03:04 PM

I might be wrong, but I remember this as The Big Read back when I lived in Leicester. It was nothing about a challenge, it was the Top 100 Must Reads as voted for by the British Public (who BTW have terrible taste in poetry, according to similar polls).

It also seems unlikely that the BBC would make a supposition that people had only read six - they're an inclusive rather than an exclusive broadcasting corporation.

Sorry to be a pedant, but I felt the record should be set straight.
If it was just a random book challenge I'd let it go, but as it has the BBC's name attached, it's worth picking up on.

Anyway, if it is what I think it is, I might score quite highly, because I took it as a must-read list. Haven't managed the Russians yet.

That's not boasting I am well read, that's explaining that I saw this list before and used it deliberately. Then again, I'm sure some newer books are on there... And I swear Enid Blyton wasn't, for example. Or Bridget Jones. I fear the list may at least have been tampered with, especially given some of the books have American spellings in their titles, at least one does not have an author and some have notes like "started not finished" attached....

My list for the record.

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
15 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
16 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
17 Catcher in the Rye – JD Salinger
18 The Time Traveler’s Wife
19 Middlemarch - George Eliot
20 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
21 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
22 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
23 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
24 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
25 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
26 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
27 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
28 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
29 Persuasion - Jane Austen
30 The Alchemist - Paulo Coelho
31 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
32 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
33 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
34 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
35 Animal Farm - George Orwell
36 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
37 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
38 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
39 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
40 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
41 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
42 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
43 Dune - Frank Herbert
44 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
45 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
46 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
47 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
48 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night - Mark Haddon
49 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
50 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
51 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
52 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
53 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
54 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
55 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
56 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
57 Dracula - Bram Stoker
58 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
59 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
60 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
61 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
62 Vanity Fair - Thackeray
63 Possession - AS Byatt
64 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
65 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
66 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
67 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
68 Charlotte’s Web - EB White
69 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Alborn
70 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
71 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
72 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
73 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
74 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
75 Watership Down - Richard Adam
76 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
77 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
78 A Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess
79 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl

04-07-2011, 03:04 PM	#14
Sundae polaroid of perfection Join Date: Sep 2005 Location: West Yorkshire Posts: 24,185	I might be wrong, but I remember this as The Big Read back when I lived in Leicester. It was nothing about a challenge, it was the Top 100 Must Reads as voted for by the British Public (who BTW have terrible taste in poetry, according to similar polls). It also seems unlikely that the BBC would make a supposition that people had only read six - they're an inclusive rather than an exclusive broadcasting corporation. Sorry to be a pedant, but I felt the record should be set straight. If it was just a random book challenge I'd let it go, but as it has the BBC's name attached, it's worth picking up on. Anyway, if it is what I think it is, I might score quite highly, because I took it as a must-read list. Haven't managed the Russians yet. That's not boasting I am well read, that's explaining that I saw this list before and used it deliberately. Then again, I'm sure some newer books are on there... And I swear Enid Blyton wasn't, for example. Or Bridget Jones. I fear the list may at least have been tampered with, especially given some of the books have American spellings in their titles, at least one does not have an author and some have notes like "started not finished" attached.... My list for the record. 1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen 2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien 3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte 4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling 5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee 6 The Bible 7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte 8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell 9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman 10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens 11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott 12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy 13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller 14 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier 15 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien 16 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks 17 Catcher in the Rye – JD Salinger 18 The Time Traveler’s Wife 19 Middlemarch - George Eliot 20 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell 21 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald 22 Bleak House - Charles Dickens 23 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams 24 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck 25 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll 26 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame 27 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens 28 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis 29 Persuasion - Jane Austen 30 The Alchemist - Paulo Coelho 31 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini 32 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres 33 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden 34 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne 35 Animal Farm - George Orwell 36 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown 37 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez 38 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving 39 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery 40 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy 41 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood 42 Lord of the Flies - William Golding 43 Dune - Frank Herbert 44 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen 45 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth 46 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens 47 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley 48 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night - Mark Haddon 49 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez 50 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck 51 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold 52 On The Road - Jack Kerouac 53 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy 54 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding 55 Moby Dick - Herman Melville 56 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens 57 Dracula - Bram Stoker 58 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett 59 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson 60 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath 61 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome 62 Vanity Fair - Thackeray 63 Possession - AS Byatt 64 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens 65 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell 66 The Color Purple - Alice Walker 67 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro 68 Charlotte’s Web - EB White 69 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Alborn 70 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle 71 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton 72 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad 73 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery 74 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks 75 Watership Down - Richard Adam 76 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute 77 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas 78 A Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess 79 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl __________________ Life's hard you know, so strike a pose on a Cadillac Last edited by Sundae; 04-07-2011 at 03:27 PM. Reason: Didn't spell pedant correctly....!