Books

In 2006, I decided to read everything on The Whitcoulls Top 100 list. I finished that little task mid-2007, and from there turned to 2005’s The BBC Big Read Top 200 for inspiration…

Completed! October 2015

The List:
1. The Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkien
2. Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
3. His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman
4. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams
5. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire – JK Rowling
6. To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
7. Winnie the Pooh – AA Milne
8. Nineteen Eighty-Four – George Orwell
9. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe – CS Lewis
10. Jane Eyre – Charlotte Brontë
11. Catch-22 – Joseph Heller
12. Wuthering Heights – Emily Brontë
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
17. Great Expectations – Charles Dickens
18. Little Women – Louisa May Alcott
19. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis de Bernieres
20. War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy
21. Gone with the Wind – Margaret Mitchell
22. Harry Potter And The Philosopher’s Stone – JK Rowling
23. Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets – JK Rowling
24. Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban – JK Rowling
25. The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien
26. Tess Of The D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy
27. Middlemarch – George Eliot
28. A Prayer For Owen Meany – John Irving
29. The Grapes Of Wrath – John Steinbeck
30. Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland – Lewis Carroll
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
37. A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute
38. Persuasion – Jane Austen
39. Dune – Frank Herbert
40. Emma – Jane Austen
41. Anne Of Green Gables – LM Montgomery
42. Watership Down – Richard Adams
43. The Great Gatsby – F Scott Fitzgerald
44. The Count Of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas
45. Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh
46. Animal Farm – George Orwell
47. A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens
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
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
60. Crime And Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky
61. Noughts And Crosses – Malorie Blackman
62. Memoirs Of A Geisha – Arthur Golden
63. A Tale Of Two Cities – Charles Dickens
64. The Thorn Birds – Colleen McCollough
65. Mort – Terry Pratchett
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
71. Perfume – Patrick Süskind
72. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists – Robert Tressell
73. Night Watch – Terry Pratchett
74. Matilda – Roald Dahl
75. Bridget Jones’s Diary – Helen Fielding
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
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
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
94. The Alchemist – Paulo Coelho
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
101. Three Men In A Boat – Jerome K. Jerome
102. Small Gods – Terry Pratchett
103. The Beach – Alex Garland
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
115. The Mayor Of Casterbridge – Thomas Hardy
116. The Dare Game – Jacqueline Wilson
117. Bad Girls – Jacqueline Wilson
118. The Picture Of Dorian Gray – Oscar Wilde
119. Shogun – James Clavell
120. The Day Of The Triffids – John Wyndham
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
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
134. George’s Marvellous Medicine – Roald Dahl
135. Wyrd Sisters – Terry Pratchett
136. The Color Purple – Alice Walker
137. Hogfather – Terry Pratchett
138. The Thirty-Nine Steps – John Buchan
139. Girls In Tears – Jacqueline Wilson
140. Sleepovers – Jacqueline Wilson
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
159. Kim – Rudyard Kipling
160. Cross Stitch – Diana Gabaldon
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
171. Frankenstein – Mary Shelley
172. They Used To Play On Grass – Terry Venables and Gordon Williams
173. The Old Man And The Sea – Ernest Hemingway
174. The Name Of The Rose – Umberto Eco
175. Sophie’s World – Jostein Gaarder
176. Dustbin Baby – Jacqueline Wilson
177. Fantastic Mr Fox – Roald Dahl
178. Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov
179. Jonathan Livingstone Seagull – Richard Bach
180. The Little Prince – Antoine De Saint-Exupery
181. The Suitcase Kid – Jacqueline Wilson
182. Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens
183. The Power Of One – Bryce Courtenay
184. Silas Marner – George Eliot
185. American Psycho – Bret Easton Ellis
186. The Diary Of A Nobody – George and Weedon Grossmith
187. Trainspotting – Irvine Welsh
188. Goosebumps – R. L. Stine
189. Heidi – Johanna Spyri
190. Sons And Lovers – D. H. Lawrence
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

You can also find me reviewing and contributing to 1001 Books to Read Before You Die.