Reading List Completists discussion

At Matthews request I'm providing information about the Great American Read list. I've spent a lot of time with this list in the last 6 months!

The Great American Read List - (Rank ordered based on 6 months of voting in the US and Canada)

1. To Kill a Mockingbird
2. Outlander (Series)
3. Harry Potter (Series)
4. Pride and Prejudice
5. Lord of the Rings
6. Gone with the Wind
7. Charlotte's Web
8. Little Women
9. Chronicles of Narnia
10. Jane Eyre
11. Anne of Green Gables
12. Grapes of Wrath
13. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
14. Book Thief
15. Great Gatsby
16. The Help
17. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
18. 1984
19. And Then There Were None
20. Atlas Shrugged
21. Wuthering Heights
22. Lonesome Dove
23. Pillars of the Earth
24. Stand
25. Rebecca
26. A Prayer for Owen Meany
27. Color Purple
28. Alice in Wonderland
29. Great Expectations
30. Catcher in the Rye
31. Where the Red Fern Grows
32. Outsiders
33. The Da Vinci Code
34. The Handmaid's Tale
35. Dune
36. The Little Prince
37. Call of the Wild
38. The Clan of the Cave Bear
39. The Hitchhiker's Guide to The Galaxy
40. The Hunger Games
41. The Count of Monte Cristo
42. The Joy Luck Club
43. Frankenstein
44. The Giver
45. Memoirs of a Geisha
46. Moby Dick
47. Catch 22
48. Game of Thrones (series)
49. Foundation (series)
50. War and Peace
51. Their Eyes Were Watching God
52. Jurassic Park
53. The Godfather
54. One Hundred Years of Solitude
55. The Picture of Dorian Gray
56. The Notebook
57. The Shack
58. A Confederacy of Dunces
59. The Hunt for Red October
60. Beloved
61. The Martian
62. The Wheel of Time (series)
63. Siddhartha
64. Crime and Punishment
65. The Sun Also Rises
66. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime
67. A Separate Peace
68. Don Quixote
69. The Lovely Bones
70. The Alchemist
71. Hatchet (series)
72. Invisible Man
73. The Twilight Saga (series)
74. Tales of the City (series)
75. Gulliver's Travels
76. Ready Player One
77. Left Behind (series)
78. Gone Girl
79. Watchers
80. The Pilgrim's Progress
81. Alex Cross Mysteries (series)
82. Things Fall Apart
83. Heart of Darkness
84. Gilead
85. Flowers in the Attic
86. Fifty Shades of Grey
87. The Sirens of Titan
88. This Present Darkness
89. Americanah
90. Another Country
91. Bless Me, Ultima
92. Looking for Alaska
93. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
94. Swan Song
95. Mind Invaders
96. White Teeth
97. Ghost
98. The Coldest Winter Ever
99. The Intuitionist
100. Doña Bárbára


PBS's The Great American Read list - in alphabetical order, with author

1984-George Orwell
A Confederacy of Dunces-John Kennedy Toole
A Prayer for Owen Meany-John Irving
A Separate Peace-John Knowles
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn-Betty Smith
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer-Mark Twain
The Alcemist-Paulo Coelho
Alex Cross Mysteries (Series)-James Patterson
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland-Lewis Carroll
Americanah-Chimamanda Nogzi Adichie
And Then There Were None-Agatha Christie
Anne of Green Gables-Lucy Maud Montgomery
Another Country-James Baldwin
Atlas Shrugged-Ayn Rand
Beloved-Toni Morrison
Bless Me, Ultima-Rudolfo Anaya
The Book Thief-Markus Zusak
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao-Junot Diaz
The Call of the Wild-Jack London
Catch 22-Joseph Heller
The Catcher in the Rye-J.D. Salinger
Charlotte's Web-E.B. White
The Chronicles of Narnia (Series)-C.S. Lewis
The Clan of the Cave Bear-Jean M. Auel
The Coldest Winter Ever-Sister Souljah
The Color Purple-Alice Walker
The Count of Monte Cristo-Alexandre Dumas
Crime and Punishment-Fyodor Dostoyevsky
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Tie-Mark Haddon
The Da Vinci Code-Dan Brown
Don Quixote-Miguel de Cervantes
Dona Barbara-Romulo Gallegos
Dune-Frank Herbert
Fifty Shades of Grey (Series)-E.L. James
Flowers in the Attic-V.C. Andrews
Foundation (Series)-Isaac Asimov
Frankenstein-Mary Shelley
Game of Thrones (Series)-George R.R. Martin
Ghost-Jason Reynolds
Glead-Marilynne Robinson
The Giver-Lois Lowery
The Godfather-Mario Puzo
Gone Girl-Gillian Flynn
Gone with the Wind-Margaret Mitchell
The Grapes of Wrath-John Steinbeck
Great Expectations-Charles Dickens
The Great Gatsby-F. Scott Fitzgerald
Gulliver's Travels-Jonathan Swift
The Handmaid's Tale-Margaret Atwood
Harry Potter (Series)-J.K. Rowling
Hatcher (Series)-Gary Paulsen
Heart of Darkness-Joseph Conrad
The Help-Kathryn Stockett
The Hitchhiker's Guide to The Galaxy-Douglas Adams
The Hunger Games (Series)-Suzanne Collins
The Hunt for Red October-Tom Clancy
The Intuituionist-Colson Whitehead
Invisible Man-Ralph Ellison
Jane Eyer-Charlotte Bronte
The Joy Luck Club-Amy Tan
Jurassic Park-Michael Crichton
Left Behind (Series)-Ti LaHaye/Jerry B. Jenkins
The Little Prince-Antoine de Saint-Exurpery
Little Women-Louisa May Alcott
Lonesome Dove-Larry McMurtry
Looking for Alaska-John Green
The Lord of the Rings (Series)-J.R.R. Tolkien
The Lovely Bones-Alice Sebold
The Martian-Andy Weir
Memoirs of a Geisha-Arthur Golden
Mind Invaders-Dave Hunt
Moby-Dick-Herman Melville
The Notebook-Nicholas Sparks
One Hundred Years of Solitude-Gaberiel Garcia Marquez
Outlander (Series)-Diana Gabaldon
The Outsiders-S.E. Hinton
The Picture of Dorian Gray-Oscar Wilde
The Pilgrims Progress-John Bunyan
The Pillars of the Earth-Ken Follett
Pride and Prejudice-Jane Austen
Ready Player One-Ernest Cline
Rebecca-Daphne du Maurier
The Shack-William P. Young
Siddhartha-Hermann Hesse
The Sirens of Titan-Kurt Vonnegut
The Stand-Stephen King
The Sun Also Rises-Ernest Hemingway
Swan Song-Robert R. McCammon
Tales of The City (Series)-Armistead Maupin
Their Eyes Were Watching God-Zora Neale Hurston
Things Fall Apart-Chinua Achebe
This Present Darkness-Frank E. Peretti
To Kill a Mockingbird-Harper Lee
The Twilight Saga (Series)-Stephenie Meyer
War and Peace-Leo Tolstoy
Watchers-Dean Koontz
The Wheel of Time (Series)-Robert Jordan/Brandon Sanderson
Where the Red Fern Grows-Wilson Rawls
White Teeth-Zadie Smith
Wuthering Heights-Emily Bronte

This is a list of books that are the "favorite" or "beloved" books of Americans, not necessarily books written by Americans. PBS used survey techniques to reach a representative cross section of Americans, by region, race, religion, etc. to create the original list. The committee allowed only one book per author, and counted a series as one book Then it was opened up to Americans and Canadians for voting (online, facebook, twitter, phone, text) to rank order the list.

LINKS:

Link to the PBS site with background data, genres, videos, etc.
https://www.pbs.org/the-great-america...

Link to goodreads discussions about the list and tv shows:
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/group...

Link to my goodreads GAR bookshelf with additional data on each book. 136 GAR books, including many of the series books. I think it should show you all the fields in my settings, such as page numbers, publication dates. Let me know if it doesn't.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/list...

I do not yet know anyone who has read all the books, but one of the members of my group is getting very close!

Questions?

Thank you for the list - it will now be a part of this group's journey.

I think I have read around 60, but that is mainly based around the fact that I am not 100% sure how to count the ones listed as series. In several cases I have just read the first book. I wonder about this, too, because some of these would take a serious commitment to complete the series (I am looking at you, Wheel of Time!). Thoughts?

Great list, I’m up to about 72 books read. I loved the first Wheel of Time book but couldn’t get interested in the second one. In 2019 I would love to finish War and Peace finally and read Atlas Shrugged 😀

Matthew wrote: "Thank you for the list - it will now be a part of this group's journey.

I think I have read around 60, but that is mainly based around the fact that I am not 100% sure how to count the ones listed..."

Regarding the series books, in the GAR group we decided that you can count the list finished as long as you read one of the books in each series (usually the first). But most of us try to finish the series we like. [I would never ask anyone to read 20 or more of the James Patterson books. It would be like opening 20 bags of chips and eating a bag with each book. They start out fun, but by the third or fourth book, the books (and the potato chips) are getting stale. Some of our member refuse to read 50 Shades of gray.]

I think the Great American Read is more challenging than some lists because of the many genre books. It's forcing me to read more science fiction and horror. At the same time there are many easy mainstream books too.

We give bonus points in challenges for going outside your comfort zone - with genre diversity, cultural diversity, international and age (3 century challenge).

In January we will Little Women and Heart of Darkness, plus Pillars of the earth (Jan-March). Everyone is welcome to visit with us, comment or read with us. Most of the books have a thread, so feel free to share our comments on those threads. We appreciate different opinions.

Mathew, you're welcome to tell our group what you're doing over here.
Thanks! NancyJ

NancyJ wrote: "Matthew wrote: "Thank you for the list - it will now be a part of this group's journey.

I think I have read around 60, but that is mainly based around the fact that I am not 100% sure how to count..."

Thanks for the info, Nancy - I will check it out!

I think I read about 76 of these. I made it to 49 before my first stop. War and Peace must get crossed off this year, I suppose.

Looks like I am up to 74 on this list

Wow that’s impressive Matthew! I’m at 31 but have many of these lined up for 2022

Jessica wrote: "Wow that’s impressive Matthew! I’m at 31 but have many of these lined up for 2022"

Good luck - I hope you get to check off a lot more!

I have read 58 of them. There are several that I will never read because they hold absolutely no interest for me whatsoever. Interesting, nonetheless. Thanks for listing them out for us.