h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

This was a BBC survey in 2003 to find out the UK's favourite novels. Below are the links to the top 200.

I think I've read 47, using a "when in doubt, it doesn't count" rule, as some I started and never finished. And others by authors with multiple entries, where I might be unsure about titles.

If you're a Pratchett fan, you'll be off to a good start.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/bigread/top100.shtml
http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/bigread/top200.shtml

I've read 97 of the 200 books.

I disagree with the inclusion of some of the books on the list. I do not plan to ever read "American psycho."

Why was "Fahrenheit 451" not on the list?

There are thirty or forty other books on the list that I have plans to eventually read, but haven't got to them yet.

It was a poll they did - I think about three quarters of a million people sent in their favourites. There's usually a bias towards more recent releases in polls like that - I think you'd notice a few differences if the same poll was done now, 11 years later. The Harry Potter series would probably be slightly less popular.

Another thing that probably influences it is what people read at school. A lot of the titles - Animal Farm, To Kill A Mockingbird, The Great Gatsby etc - are favourites on the English literature syllabus.

Another thing about it - I'm not sure why 'His Dark Materials', 'Lord Of The Rings' and THHGTTG count as one novel each, but the Harry Potter ones are listed separately.

certainly Hitchhikers has appeared as one volume so that probably works, and LOTR should have been one volume so I can get that. But the Harry Potter books have never been considered to be one big book.

I'll have to check the list again.

111 out of 200. does it count that I have read number 199 in about 16 different languages?

Only if you're bored.

Not a spanish title in that list despite there are so many writers who use spanish, those of spain and those of latin america.
at least there are two french titles, an african and an italian , if I´ve skimmed the list well.

I hadn´t seen the first list, there´s García Márquez and a few foreigners titles more.

I've only managed 58, but I do feel at a slight disadvantage as I haven't read any Jacqueline Wilson, that would have bumped me up a bit!

Deb

On a quick scan I think I've read 86 - more of the top 100 than second 100. It is an odd selection - from The Very Hungry Caterpillar to Ulysses. Many of the children's books would only be read by a certain generation of parents/children.

I was interested that our local paper published the 100 most borrowed titles from the local library. I'd hardly read any of those!

It wasn't a recommended reading list, Maria, it was an opinion poll.

92 out of 200. I thought it was interesting that I'd reader fewer on each successive list of 50 - the count went 31, 21, 16, 14.

It's also quite possible that I would have scored half that in 2003, because I don't think I'd discovered Terry Pratchett then, and my daughters were yet to introduce me to Jacqueline Wilson or various GCSE texts.

Mol

In the last year I've been trying to read top books in a lot of different genres. The children's books have the virtue of being faster reads . There are also some awards groups for various genres -- Hugo, Nebula, Edgar, Newbery, etc. I don't know if the winners of those awards get voted onto most-popular lists. Sometimes an award-winner gets on the U.K. best-seller list -- "Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell," which has been made into a BBC mini-series due out this month -- but with the passage of time people tend to forget about them.

It's not all about geography, either. Zadie Smith's books -- "White Teeth," NW" -- are set in London, but were not voted in as favorite books.

I read something like 275 books in the 12 months to November 2014 - but they were (a) almost all children's books and (b) almost all re-reads.

I haven't read any books at all in the last month, which isn't like me. But Christmas is coming ...

Mol

Mol were you introduced to the dubious delights of the billion book serial of Angus Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging?

Yes, KB,but I can´t help thinking that the list is too anglosaxon. Im sure that a similar poll in france or spain would give a more varied list it would have more international titles.

I´d say nothing on music or cinema, since those have to do more with promotion campaings and money, but on literature is different.

I have read and remember well enough to recount the plot of 177.Looks like I need to try to find some Antony Horowitz as I like stuff of his I've heard on the radio. And I'm not sure I can really count Ulysses. Several have been reread regularly from childhood and Terry Pratchett gets a complete rereading every time I buy a new one.
There's about 20 books I don't like very much, but I have read and remembered them.
(When I was 10 I had read everything in the local library's children's section, and was given special permission, countersigned by my mother, to use the adult library)

Here's a French list : http://500-livres.com/index.html
Pretty international list of authors, it seems.
Hitchhiker's is at number 178.

I've read 26 of the top 200 Big read books,
but only 22 of the top 200 of the French poll.

There are at least three or four "Greatest books of the 20th century" lists. Random House put out a list. Modern Library put out a list. Probably the new York Public Library put out a list. There are two or three "Greatest children's books of all time" lists [one by the Bew York Public Library, and one by Scholastic Books]. I've seen at least one "Greatest books of the 21st century" list. For individual years, there are always lists of greatest books by the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Boston Globe. I've seen one or two "Greatest books of the 19th century" lists. There are lists of greatest crime stories of all time, and greatest science fiction books of all time.

That's a lot of lists to coordinate and sift through, conaining thousands of potential books that may be just one person's idea of must-reads, or the result of a committee's compromises.

Good Reads is a website that puts out lists of great books as voted by their readers. Sometimes these lists run to thousands of titles. I've seen Readers' Choice polls that have books by L Ron Hubbard and An Rand clustered at the top, and I regard such lists as fatally flawed by special interest groups who flood such sites to elbow aside the votes by more discerning readers.

I like to savor a book, not toss it off in a day or two. If read 80 to 100 pages a night, I want to be able to be proud of what I've read. There are other worthwhile things to do with one's time than reading, but when I do spend time reading, I want my reading to make a difference. At most, I don't expect to be able to read more than 3,000 books before the end of my life. Someone who has forty or fifty more years of life expectancy to work with than I have might have a free hand to reread favorite titles or go with junk. [Not that I'm saying anyone *will* do that, just that I want to read many good titles once. If I miss reading a worthy book, but it gets turned into a movie, I'll watch the movie....]