Hello there 
Okay, so it’s Banned Books Week! *yay!*
So in lieu of some of the feedback on my Facebook, Twitter and the comments section of my “Hello Banned Books Week” post — I wanted to share with you a list the BBC made for the year 2000 and then updated shortly after. There are two giant lists here, so I turned it into the “Top 200.”
See two links below:
I wondered how many I read, since I am a bookworm and I admit to that fact, so here we go.
I’m going to post the Top 200 because there are some on 100-200 that I read as well. I put line breaks in groups of 20 for easy navigation.
Going to use a [x] to signify I read it.
Going to use “bold” formatting to signify I LOVED it.
Going to use “italics” formatting to signify I WANT to read it.
Harry Potter Boxed Set via Amazon.com
1. The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien [x] (technically “The Lord of the Rings” is 3 books, “The Fellowship of the Ring,” “The Two Towers” and “The Return of the King.” Not sure if you want to include “The Hobbit” in there.)
2. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen [x]
3. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman [x] (though technically, this is a set of 3 books. 5 If you count the prequels, etc.)
4. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
5. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, JK Rowling [x] (Potter books are scattered throughout this list, but technically the series is 7 books, 9 if count the “school” books and 10 if you count “Tales of the Beedle Bard.”)
6. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee [x]
7. Winnie the Pooh, AA Milne [x]
8. Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell [x]
9. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, CS Lewis [x] (again, technically a series of 7 — and I feel like it should be saying “The Chronicles of Narnia.”)
10. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë [x]
11. Catch-22, Joseph Heller
12. Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë [x]
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 [x]
17. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens [x]
18. Little Women, Louisa May Alcott [x]
19. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres
20. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy [x]
via Penguin Classics UK
21. Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell [x]
22. Harry Potter And The Philosopher’s Stone, JK Rowling [x]
23. Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets, JK Rowling [x]
24. Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban, JK Rowling [x]
25. The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien [x] (oh look! <— here’s it is !)
26. Tess Of The D’Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy [x]
27. Middlemarch, George Eliot
28. A Prayer For Owen Meany, John Irving
29. The Grapes Of Wrath, John Steinbeck [x]
30. Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland, Lewis Carroll [x]
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 [x]
37. A Town Like Alice, Nevil Shute
38. Persuasion, Jane Austen [x]
39. Dune, Frank Herbert
40. Emma, Jane Austen [x]
41. Anne Of Green Gables, LM Montgomery
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42. Watership Down, Richard Adams
43. The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald [x]
44. The Count Of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas [x]
45. Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
46. Animal Farm, George Orwell [x]
47. A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens [x]
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 [x]
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 [x] (again, I believe this series is on book #6 at the moment and Colfer has no plans on stopping from what I understand.)
60. Crime And Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky [x]
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61. Noughts And Crosses, Malorie Blackman
62. Memoirs Of A Geisha, Arthur Golden
63. A Tale Of Two Cities, Charles Dickens [x]
64. The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCollough
65. Mort, Terry Pratchett (Don’t know what # in Discworld this is, but Discworld is a series of books as well, and it’s sitting on 36 books as of 2008. This list has scattered Discworld books.)
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 [x]
71. Perfume, Patrick Süskind
72. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, Robert Tressell
73. Night Watch, Terry Pratchett
74. Matilda, Roald Dahl [x]
75. Bridget Jones’s Diary, Helen Fielding [x]
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
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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 [x] (I seriously <3 this book!!!)
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 [x]
94. The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho [x]
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
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101. Three Men In A Boat, Jerome K. Jerome
102. Small Gods, Terry Pratchett
103. The Beach, Alex Garland [x]
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 [x]
115. The Mayor Of Casterbridge, Thomas Hardy [x]
116. The Dare Game, Jacqueline Wilson
117. Bad Girls, Jacqueline Wilson
118. The Picture Of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde [x]
119. Shogun, James Clavell
120. The Day Of The Triffids, John Wyndham
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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 [x]
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 [x]
134. George’s Marvellous Medicine, Roald Dahl
135. Wyrd Sisters, Terry Pratchett
136. The Color Purple, Alice Walker [x]
137. Hogfather, Terry Pratchett
138. The Thirty-Nine Steps, John Buchan
139. Girls In Tears, Jacqueline Wilson
140. Sleepovers, Jacqueline Wilson
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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 [x]
159. Kim, Rudyard Kipling
160. Cross Stitch, Diana Gabaldon
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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 [x]
171. Frankenstein, Mary Shelley [x]
172. They Used To Play On Grass, Terry Venables and Gordon Williams
173. The Old Man And The Sea, Ernest Hemingway [x]
174. The Name Of The Rose, Umberto Eco
175. Sophie’s World, Jostein Gaarder [x]
176. Dustbin Baby, Jacqueline Wilson
177. Fantastic Mr Fox, Roald Dahl
178. Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov [x]
179. Jonathan Livingstone Seagull, Richard Bach
180. The Little Prince, Antoine De Saint-Exupery [x]
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181. The Suitcase Kid, Jacqueline Wilson
182. Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens [x]
183. The Power Of One, Bryce Courtenay
184. Silas Marner, George Eliot
185. American Psycho, Bret Easton Ellis [x]
186. The Diary Of A Nobody, George and Weedon Grossmith
187. Trainspotting, Irvine Welsh
188. Goosebumps, R. L. Stine [x]
189. Heidi, Johanna Spyri [x]
190. Sons And Lovers, D. H. Lawrence [x]
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
His Dark Materials via Amazon.com
I’ve read a total of 58 out of of the 200. Though, “His Dark Materials” is technically 5 books and “Lord of the Rings” is 3…so that would be 65. 66 if you count “The Deathly Hallows.”
A couple things, where is “Peter Pan” or “The Giver?” or “North & South” (Gaskell)…and “The Alchemist?” What about “Much Ado About Nothing?” and where is “Hamlet?” grrr. Speaking of which — What about “Eragon?” It’s possibly better than “Artemis Fowl.”
As the list was made in 2003, there isn’t an excuse for missing most the above.
I think the list is outdated and missing some excellent books, while at the same time not counting “series” as well a series. In my opinion, the list should have listed “Harry Potter” for example, versus the individual books.
What additions or changes would you make? Feel free to post in the comments, how many you’ve read from the list, etc. or “owl” me via Twitter or Little Pink Book’s Facebook
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Sasha Muradali runs the ‘Little Pink Book’ . She holds a B.S. in Public Relations from the University of Florida (’07) and an M.A. in International Administration from the University of Miami(’08). She loves Twitter and all things social media, so you should find her @SashaHalima.
Copyright © 2009 SashaH. Muradali. All Rights Reserved.
