read BBC's Big Read top 200 books

I looked at the list, and I’ve read quite a few, so I only have to read 134 more!

I love reading, but theres to much to read, so i never know what to choose.

I adore this goal! It got me into reading good literature, helped me discover amazing authors and inspired me to hopefully write up a book of my own on literature reviews :)

25% of my way there!

I’m not trying to be a snob but 200 books seems a lot for the average reader to have read, so it’s not unimaginable that a fair few of the books on the list have been reccommended for reasons other than them having been read, enjoyed and remembered. Here are some possible reasons some of the books have made the list…

1. People have heard they are good but have never actually got around to reading them.
2. They were part of the GCSE English Lit. curriculum.
3. Other books by the same (prolific) author have been read and enjoyed, and books by these authors are highly predictable in style and subject.
4. The books were published recently and have enjoyed widespread popularity but probably not the kind that lasts as new books are over-publisiced daily.
5. Books in a series have been listed separately.
6. They’ve been made into movies.
7. Readers have a fondness for books they read as children although not all of these would stand up to an adult reading.

No where near finishing yet but in a way I am happy about that because I think I’ll be quite sad when I have finished them all and have to go it alone in my pursuit of good books. I need the guidance i think.
Anyway I am so glad I took up this aim. I’ve been introduced to some amazing books, they’ve touched me emotionally or taught me amazing , wise things. I’ll never forget them.

Just decided i want to do this and was surprised to find im already about a quarter of the way there :) have read the ones ‘d

The BBC’s Big Read top 200 books
1. The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien
2. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
3. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman*
4. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams*
5. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, JK Rowling*
6. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee*
7. Winnie the Pooh, AA Milne*
8. Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell*
9. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, CS Lewis*
10. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte*
11. Catch-22, Joseph Heller*
12. Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë
13. Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks
14. Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier
15. The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger
16. The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame*
17. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
18. Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
19. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres*
20. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
21. Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell*
22. Harry Potter And The Philosopher’s Stone, JK Rowling*
23. Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets, JK Rowling*
24. Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban, JK Rowling*
25. The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien*
26. Tess Of The D’Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy
27. Middlemarch, George Eliot
28. A Prayer For Owen Meany, John Irving
29. The Grapes Of Wrath, John Steinbeck
30. Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland, Lewis Carroll*
31. The Story Of Tracy Beaker, Jacqueline Wilson*
32. One Hundred Years Of Solitude, Gabriel García Márquez
33. The Pillars Of The Earth, Ken Follett*
34. David Copperfield, Charles Dickens
35. Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl*
36. Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson*
37. A Town Like Alice, Nevil Shute
38. Persuasion, Jane Austen
39. Dune, Frank Herbert*
40. Emma, Jane Austen*
41. Anne Of Green Gables, LM Montgomery*
42. Watership Down, Richard Adams
43. The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald
44. The Count Of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas
45. Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
46. Animal Farm, George Orwell*
47. A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens
48. Far From The Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy
49. Goodnight Mister Tom, Michelle Magorian
50. The Shell Seekers, Rosamunde Pilcher
51. The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett*
52. Of Mice And Men, John Steinbeck
53. The Stand, Stephen King
54. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
55. A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth
56. The BFG, Roald Dahl*
57. Swallows And Amazons, Arthur Ransome
58. Black Beauty, Anna Sewell*
59. Artemis Fowl, Eoin Colfer*
60. Crime And Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky
61. Noughts And Crosses, Malorie Blackman
62. Memoirs Of A Geisha, Arthur Golden*
63. A Tale Of Two Cities, Charles Dickens
64. The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCollough
65. Mort, Terry Pratchett
66. The Magic Faraway Tree, Enid Blyton*
67. The Magus, John Fowles
68. Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
69. Guards! Guards!, Terry Pratchett
70. Lord Of The Flies, William Golding*
71. Perfume, Patrick Süskind*
72. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, Robert Tressell
73. Night Watch, Terry Pratchett
74. Matilda, Roald Dahl*
75. Bridget Jones’s Diary, Helen Fielding*
76. The Secret History, Donna Tartt
77. The Woman In White, Wilkie Collins
78. Ulysses, James Joyce
79. Bleak House, Charles Dickens
80. Double Act, Jacqueline Wilson*
81. The Twits, Roald Dahl*
82. I Capture The Castle, Dodie Smith
83. Holes, Louis Sachar*
84. Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake
85. The God Of Small Things, Arundhati Roy*
86. Vicky Angel, Jacqueline Wilson*
87. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
88. Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons
89. Magician, Raymond E Feist
90. On The Road, Jack Kerouac
91. The Godfather, Mario Puzo
92. The Clan Of The Cave Bear, Jean M Auel*
93. The Colour Of Magic, Terry Pratchett
94. The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho*
95. Katherine, Anya Seton
96. Kane And Abel, Jeffrey Archer*
97. Love In The Time Of Cholera, Gabriel García Márquez
98. Girls In Love, Jacqueline Wilson*
99. The Princess Diaries, Meg Cabot*
100. Midnight’s Children, Salman Rushdie
101. Three Men In A Boat, Jerome K. Jerome
102. Small Gods, Terry Pratchett
103. The Beach, Alex Garland*
104. Dracula, Bram Stoker
105. Point Blanc, Anthony Horowitz
106. The Pickwick Papers, Charles Dickens
107. Stormbreaker, Anthony Horowitz
108. The Wasp Factory, Iain Banks*
109. The Day Of The Jackal, Frederick Forsyth
110. The Illustrated Mum, Jacqueline Wilson
111. Jude The Obscure, Thomas Hardy
112. The Secret Diary Of Adrian Mole Aged 13¾, Sue Townsend*
113. The Cruel Sea, Nicholas Monsarrat
114. Les Misérables, Victor Hugo
115. The Mayor Of Casterbridge, Thomas Hardy
116. The Dare Game, Jacqueline Wilson
117. Bad Girls, Jacqueline Wilson*
118. The Picture Of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde
119. Shogun, James Clavell
120. The Day Of The Triffids, John Wyndham
121. Lola Rose, Jacqueline Wilson*
122. Vanity Fair, William Makepeace Thackeray
123. The Forsyte Saga, John Galsworthy
124. House Of Leaves, Mark Z. Danielewski
125. The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver
126. Reaper Man, Terry Pratchett
127. Angus, Thongs And Full-Frontal Snogging, Louise Rennison*
128. The Hound Of The Baskervilles, Arthur Conan Doyle
129. Possession, A. S. Byatt
130. The Master And Margarita, Mikhail Bulgakov
131. The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood
132. Danny The Champion Of The World, Roald Dahl
133. East Of Eden, John Steinbeck
134. George’s Marvellous Medicine, Roald Dahl*
135. Wyrd Sisters, Terry Pratchett
136. The Color Purple, Alice Walker
137. Hogfather, Terry Pratchett
138. The Thirty-Nine Steps, John Buchan
139. Girls In Tears, Jacqueline Wilson*
140. Sleepovers, Jacqueline Wilson*
141. All Quiet On The Western Front, Erich Maria Remarque
142. Behind The Scenes At The Museum, Kate Atkinson
143. High Fidelity, Nick Hornby
144. It, Stephen King
145. James And The Giant Peach, Roald Dahl*
146. The Green Mile, Stephen King
147. Papillon, Henri Charriere
148. Men At Arms, Terry Pratchett
149. Master And Commander, Patrick O’Brian
150. Skeleton Key, Anthony Horowitz
151. Soul Music, Terry Pratchett
152. Thief Of Time, Terry Pratchett
153. The Fifth Elephant, Terry Pratchett
154. Atonement, Ian McEwan
155. Secrets, Jacqueline Wilson
156. The Silver Sword, Ian Serraillier
157. One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, Ken Kesey
158. Heart Of Darkness, Joseph Conrad
159. Kim, Rudyard Kipling
160. Cross Stitch, Diana Gabaldon
161. Moby Dick, Herman Melville
162. River God, Wilbur Smith*
163. Sunset Song, Lewis Grassic Gibbon*
164. The Shipping News, Annie Proulx
165. The World According To Garp, John Irving
166. Lorna Doone, R. D. Blackmore
167. Girls Out Late, Jacqueline Wilson
168. The Far Pavilions, M. M. Kaye
169. The Witches, Roald Dahl
170. Charlotte’s Web, E. B. White*
171. Frankenstein, Mary Shelley
172. They Used To Play On Grass, Terry Venables and Gordon Williams
173. The Old Man And The Sea, Ernest Hemingway
174. The Name Of The Rose, Umberto Eco
175. Sophie’s World, Jostein Gaarder*
176. Dustbin Baby, Jacqueline Wilson*
177. Fantastic Mr Fox, Roald Dahl*
178. Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov
179. Jonathan Livingstone Seagull, Richard Bach
180. The Little Prince, Antoine De Saint-Exupery*
181. The Suitcase Kid, Jacqueline Wilson*
182. Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens
183. The Power Of One, Bryce Courtenay
184. Silas Marner, George Eliot
185. American Psycho, Bret Easton Ellis
186. The Diary Of A Nobody, George and Weedon Grossmith
187. Trainspotting, Irvine Welsh
188. Goosebumps, R. L. Stine*
189. Heidi, Johanna Spyri*
190. Sons And Lovers, D. H. Lawrence
191. The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera
192. Man And Boy, Tony Parsons
193. The Truth, Terry Pratchett
194. The War Of The Worlds, H. G. Wells
195. The Horse Whisperer, Nicholas Evans*
196. A Fine Balance, Rohinton Mistry
197. Witches Abroad, Terry Pratchett
198. The Once And Future King, T. H. White
199. The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Eric Carle
200. Flowers In The Attic, Virginia Andrews

STarted George Orwells 1984. is absolutely fantastic so far. It is already making me appreciate the fatc that I live in a democracy with freedom. I complain about the government but hey it could be worse!!!
The story makes me think of Germany during Hitlers rule as well, and seeing it was written after the war, perhaps it was based slightly on this?

I must have been asleep when i was ticking them off because i just went back and relsed i have read 38/200 not 30. Very pleased about this!!!!!
But i don’t inderstand why so many jaqueline wilson books are up?? I mean i know she teaches kids about how to deal with things like divorce etc etc but they aren’t that good!!!

Well i saw this goal and thought ‘it is perfect for me and something i could actually achieve.’
So i printed the list and see that i have already read 30/200. Quite dissappointed but since i am only youn g i realise i spent alot of my time reading childrens books or junk books which i am thouroughly ashamed of.
I cannot wait to read some of them and i hope this goal will be a constant through these next few years of my life which are going to change and be scary and exciting.