BBC's Canon

I just "stole" this list from my cousin's Facebook notes (thanks Patti).

Apparently the BBC reckons most people will have only read 6 of the 100 books here. Interesting how many come from the Western literary tradition, but what do you expect from the BBC?

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1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen.....started it
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien.....read it and seen the movies (extended versions)---double points!
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte.....might read it
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling.....on book 4, plus I've seen the movies---points and a half!
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee.....read it
6 The Bible.....read it
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte.....read it
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens......started it---Pip, Pip, hooray!

11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott.....have three of them in my house
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller.....think I've read it
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare.....read some of them
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier.....I once knew a Becky
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien.....it's on my bookshelf, waiting for me
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot

21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell....."Frankly, my dear, I don't give a..."
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky.....started it
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck.....read it
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll.....seen the movie
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame.....I've heard wind in the willows and picked up willow branches broken in the wind

31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis.....read The Magician's Nephew and started The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
34 Emma - Jane Austen.....halfway through
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen.....my wife's reading it; does that count?
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis.....is this not included in #33?
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden.....seen the movie
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne.....seen the cartoon

41 Animal Farm - George Orwell.....it's on my bookshelf
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown.....seen the movie
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez.....wow, really? That's a long time to be alone
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving....nope, but I've read Yeats' poem, "A Prayer for My Daughter"
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery.....seen some of the show on PBS (does that make me weird?)
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy.....you'll find me right in the middle
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood.....nope; but I've read "The Little Red Hen Tells All"; does that count?
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding.....started it
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan

51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel.....started it twice; I really should finish that
52 Dune - Frank Herbert.....I think I've read it; if not, I've seen the movie
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen.....I wonder if she stole that from this?
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon.....the wind has a shadow?
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens.....started it, but then again, who hasn't: "It was the best of times..."
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon.....I've experienced some of these
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck......read it (I think)
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov.....started it
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold.....I've seen a few episodes of "Bones"
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas.....read it
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac...."again; just can't wait to get on the road again"
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding.....seen some of the movie
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie.....sometimes they keep me awake
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville.....a big white whale from a dead white guy

71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens.....seen the movie (animated and live action)
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker.....what, no Twilight?
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett.....seen the movie
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson.....Lost?
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola.....I've seen The Terminal
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray.....Isn't that a magazine?
80 Possession - AS Byatt

81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens.....seen a few versions of the movie
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell.....I like to chase clouds
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker.....is my wife's and daughter number one's favorite
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro.....what remains of day is night
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert.....read it
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry.....haven't found mine yet
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White.....read it
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom.....read it
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.....read a lot of them; doesn't House remind you of Sherlock, drug addiction and all?
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton.....I've got one in my backyard

91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad.....will read this semester
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery.....I'm surrounded by little princesses
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks.....this wasp or this WASP
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole.....sounds like a fun place
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas.....eaten the candy bar
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare......is this not included in Shakespeare's Complete Works (#14)
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl.....read it and seen the movie
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo.....read it, seen the movie, and seen the play (on Broadway)