The Quest - judged by the BBC*

Categories: books

Date: 14 December 2010 20:00:22

A few weeks ago, Bimble drew my attention to the BBC list of 200 books one should read. As if I haven't got enough to do with all those tomes still lurking on The Shelf. But I thought I would try to make myself feel better by ticking off the ones I have read that the BBC* thinks I should have under my literary belt. Red denotes an achievement. Blue denotes on The Shelf. Orange denotes started but not finished and probably back  on The Shelf.


  1. The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien

  2. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

  3. His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman

  4. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

  5. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J. K. Rowling

  6. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

  7. Winnie-the-Pooh by A. A. Milne

  8. Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell

  9. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis

  10. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

  11. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller

  12. Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

  13. Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks (highly recommended)

  14. Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

  15. The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger

  16. The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame

  17. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

  18. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

  19. Captain Corelli's Mandolin by Louis de Bernières

  20. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy

  21. Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell

  22. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone by J. K. Rowling

  23. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J. K. Rowling

  24. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J. K. Rowling

  25. The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien

  26. Tess of the d'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy

  27. Middlemarch by George Eliot

  28. A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving

  29. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

  30. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

  31. The Story of Tracy Beaker by Jacqueline Wilson

  32. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez

  33. The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett

  34. David Copperfield by Charles Dickens

  35. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl

  36. Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson

  37. A Town Like Alice by Nevil Shute

  38. Persuasion by Jane Austen

  39. Dune by Frank Herbert

  40. Emma by Jane Austen

  41. Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery

  42. Watership Down by Richard Adams

  43. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

  44. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas

  45. Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh

  46. Animal Farm by George Orwell

  47. A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

  48. Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy

  49. Goodnight Mister Tom by Michelle Magorian (highly recommended)

  50. The Shell Seekers by Rosamunde Pilcher (What is THIS doing here? It's rubbish. I read it because everyone was raving about it. A waste of time)

  51. The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett

  52. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck

  53. The Stand by Stephen King

  54. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

  55. A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth

  56. The BFG by Roald Dahl

  57. Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome

  58. Black Beauty by Anna Sewell

  59. Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer

  60. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky (Weeps...)

  61. Noughts & Crosses by Malorie Blackman

  62. Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden

  63. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

  64. The Thorn Birds by Colleen McCullough

  65. Mort by Terry Pratchett

  66. The Magic Faraway Tree by Enid Blyton (not recently!!)

  67. The Magus by John Fowles

  68. Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett

  69. Guards! Guards! by Terry Pratchett

  70. Lord of the Flies by William Golding

  71. Perfume by Patrick Süskind

  72. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists by Robert Tressell

  73. Night Watch by Terry Pratchett

  74. Matilda by Roald Dahl

  75. Bridget Jones's Diary by Helen Fielding

  76. The Secret History by Donna Tartt

  77. The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins

  78. Ulysses by James Joyce

  79. Bleak House by Charles Dickens

  80. Double Act by Jacqueline Wilson

  81. The Twits by Roald Dahl

  82. I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith

  83. Holes by Louis Sachar

  84. Gormenghast by Mervyn Peake

  85. The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy

  86. Vicky Angel by Jacqueline Wilson

  87. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

  88. Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons

  89. Magician by Raymond E. Feist

  90. On the Road by Jack Kerouac

  91. The Godfather by Mario Puzo

  92. The Clan of the Cave Bear by Jean M. Auel

  93. The Colour of Magic by Terry Pratchett

  94. The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho

  95. Katherine by Anya Seton

  96. Kane and Abel by Jeffrey Archer

  97. Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez

  98. Girls in Love by Jacqueline Wilson

  99. The Princess Diaries by Meg Cabot

  100. Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie

  101. Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome

  102. Small Gods by Terry Pratchett

  103. The Beach by Alex Garland

  104. Dracula by Bram Stoker

  105. Point Blanc by Anthony Horowitz

  106. The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens

  107. Stormbreaker by Anthony Horowitz

  108. The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks

  109. The Day of the Jackal by Frederick Forsyth

  110. The Illustrated Mum by Jacqueline Wilson

  111. Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy

  112. The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13¾ by Sue Townsend

  113. The Cruel Sea by Nicholas Monsarrat

  114. Les Misérables by Victor Hugo

  115. The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy

  116. The Dare Game by Jacqueline Wilson

  117. Bad Girls by Jacqueline Wilson

  118. The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

  119. Shōgun by James Clavell

  120. The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham

  121. Lola Rose by Jacqueline Wilson

  122. Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray

  123. The Forsyte Saga by John Galsworthy

  124. House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski

  125. The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver (highly recommended)

  126. Reaper Man by Terry Pratchett

  127. Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging by Louise Rennison

  128. The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle

  129. Possession: A Romance by A. S. Byatt

  130. The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov

  131. The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood (Recommended)

  132. Danny, the Champion of the World by Roald Dahl

  133. East of Eden by John Steinbeck

  134. George's Marvellous Medicine by Roald Dahl

  135. Wyrd Sisters by Terry Pratchett

  136. The Color Purple by Alice Walker

  137. Hogfather by Terry Pratchett

  138. The Thirty-nine Steps by John Buchan

  139. Girls in Tears by Jacqueline Wilson

  140. Sleepovers by Jacqueline Wilson

  141. All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque (I think I read it in German as Im Westen nichts Neues ;-))

  142. Behind the Scenes at the Museum by Kate Atkinson

  143. High Fidelity by Nick Hornby

  144. It by Stephen King

  145. James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl

  146. The Green Mile by Stephen King

  147. Papillon by Henri Charrière

  148. Men at Arms by Terry Pratchett

  149. Master and Commander by Patrick O'Brian

  150. Skeleton Key by Anthony Horowitz

  151. Soul Music by Terry Pratchett

  152. Thief of Time by Terry Pratchett

  153. The Fifth Elephant by Terry Pratchett

  154. Atonement by Ian McEwan

  155. Secrets by Jacqueline Wilson

  156. The Silver Sword by Ian Serraillier

  157. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey

  158. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

  159. Kim by Rudyard Kipling

  160. Cross Stitch by Diana Gabaldon

  161. Moby-Dick by Herman Melville

  162. River God by Wilbur Smith

  163. Sunset Song by Lewis Grassic Gibbon

  164. The Shipping News by E. Annie Proulx

  165. The World According to Garp by John Irving

  166. Lorna Doone by R. D. Blackmore

  167. Girls Out Late by Jacqueline Wilson

  168. The Far Pavilions by M. M. Kaye (Recommended)

  169. The Witches by Roald Dahl

  170. Charlotte's Web by E. B. White

  171. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

  172. They Used to Play on Grass by Terry Venables and Gordon Williams

  173. The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway

  174. The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco

  175. Sophie's World by Jostein Gaarder

  176. Dustbin Baby by Jacqueline Wilson

  177. Fantastic Mr. Fox by Roald Dahl

  178. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

  179. Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach

  180. The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (also in French Le Petit Prince and German Der kleine Prinz ;-))

  181. The Suitcase Kid by Jacqueline Wilson

  182. Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens

  183. The Power of One by Bryce Courtenay

  184. Silas Marner by George Eliot

  185. American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis

  186. Diary of a Nobody by George and Weedon Grossmith

  187. Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh

  188. Goosebumps by R. L. Stine

  189. Heidi by Johanna Spyri (and in Swiss German, natürlich)

  190. Sons and Lovers by D. H. Lawrence

  191. The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera

  192. Man and Boy by Tony Parsons

  193. The Truth by Terry Pratchett

  194. The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells

  195. The Horse Whisperer by Nicholas Evans

  196. A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry

  197. Witches Abroad by Terry Pratchett

  198. The Once and Future King by T. H. White

  199. The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle

  200. Flowers in the Attic by V. C. Andrews


* Actually, although published by the BBC, it seems that Joe Public selected the list and Joe seems to be heavily into Jacqueline Wilson who writes for 12-year olds and Terry Pratchett who apparently writes funny novels... so my overall percentage is pushed down somewhat. Perhaps I should abandon the WCiT quest and lighten up a bit!