The 100 Best Loved Novels from The Great American Read PBS

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The Great American Read

Have you been following the Great American Read on PBS?  Were you surprised by the list? Were any of your favorite books on the list of 100 books? 

According to PBS: The chosen books span five centuries, from Don Quixote  (1603) to Ghost (2016). Authors from 15 different countries are represented, with genres ranging from beloved children’s classics such as Charlotte’s Web to modern best-sellers such as Twilight.

Below is the full list of America’s 100 favorite novels, in alphabetical order by title:

1984	Hatchet
A Confederacy of Dunces	Heart of Darkness
A Game of Thrones	The Help
A Prayer for Owen Meany	The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
A Separate Peace	The Hunger Games
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn	The Hunt for Red October
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer	The Intuitionist
The Alchemist	Invisible Man
Alex Cross Mysteries**	Jane Eyre
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland	The Joy Luck Club
Americanah	Jurassic Park
And Then There Were None	Left Behind
Anne of Green Gables	The Little Prince
Another Country	Little Women
Atlas Shrugged	Lonesome Dove
Beloved	Looking for Alaska
Bless Me, Ultima	The Lord of the Rings**
The Book Thief	The Lovely Bones
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao	The Martian
The Call of the Wild	Memoirs of a Geisha
Catch-22	Mind Invaders
The Catcher in the Rye	Moby Dick
Charlotte’s Web	The Notebook
The Chronicles of Narnia**	One Hundred Years of Solitude
The Clan of the Cave Bear	Outlander
The Coldest Winter Ever	The Outsiders
The Color Purple	The Picture of Dorian Gray
The Count of Monte Cristo	The Pilgrim’s Progress
Crime and Punishment	The Pillars of the Earth
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time	Pride and Prejudice
The Da Vinci Code	Ready Player One
Don Quixote	Rebecca
Doña Barbara	The Shack
Dune	Siddhartha
50 Shades of Gey	The Sirens of Titan
Flowers in the Attic	The Stand
Foundation	The Sun Also Rises
Frankenstein	Swan Song
Ghost	Tales of the City
Gilead	Their Eyes Were Watching God
The Giver	Things Fall Apart
The Godfather	This Present Darkness
Gone Girl	To Kill a Mockingbird
Gone with the Wind	Twlight
The Grapes of Wrath	War and Peace
Great Expectations	Watchers
The Great Gatsby	The Wheel of Time**
Gulliver’s Travels	Where the Red Fern Grows
The Handmaid’s Tale	White Teeth
Harry Potter**	Wuthering Heights

I thought I would see classics like  Little Women, The Grapes of Wrath, Great Expectations, and The Sun Also Rises but I will be honest I was totally surprised to see Flowers in the Attic (which I read in the 80’s when I was in high school), and Fifty Shades of Grey(which I have not read). But then I realized that the list is about peoples most beloved book of all time so naturally it would include books that have been incredibly popular over the last 20 years like Twlight and Harry Potter, The Shack and Left Behind.

You can take the quiz here to see how many of the books your have read and you can print the list here. If you would like to be a part of the The Great American read you can vote once a day, every day until October 18th to help pick the most popular book in America. 

I hope that you discover an old favorite on the list or something new but more importantly I hope just hope that The Great American Read encourages your to read more!

Have a great day!

Note: Many of these books are available on the  Kindle Unlimited Subscription and many of the classics are free if you have the Kindle app.