PBS's The Great American Read
THE GREAT AMERICAN READ was a 2018 eight-part series that explored and celebrated the power of reading, told through the prism of America’s 100 best-loved novels. It investigated how and why writers create their fictional worlds, how we as readers are affected by these stories, and what these 100 different books have to say about our diverse nation and our shared human experience. Each author was limited to one title on the list and only fiction could be included in the poll. 7200 Americans were surveyed for their votes.
- 1
To Kill a Mockingbird
Harper Lee · 1960 · 33 lists
- 2
Outlander
Diana Gabaldon · 1991 · 0 lists
- 3
Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone
J.K. Rowling · 1997 · 0 lists
- 4
Pride and Prejudice
Jane Austen · 1813 · 28 lists
- 5
The Lord of the Rings
J.R.R. Tolkien · 1954 · 23 lists
- 6
Gone With the Wind
Margaret Mitchell · 1936 · 22 lists
- 7
Charlotte’s Web
E. B. White · 1952 · 12 lists
- 8
Little Women
Louisa May Alcott · 1848 · 13 lists
- 9
The Chronicles of Narnia
C.S. Lewis · 1970 · 3 lists
- 10
Jane Eyre
Charlotte Brontë · 1847 · 26 lists
- 11
Anne of Green Gables
Lucy Maud Montgomery · 1908 · 5 lists
- 12
The Grapes of Wrath
John Steinbeck · 1939 · 32 lists
- 13
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
Betty Smith · 1943 · 3 lists
- 14
The Book Thief
Markus Zusak · 2005 · 7 lists
- 15
The Great Gatsby
F. Scott Fitzgerald · 1925 · 0 lists
- 16
The Help
Kathryn Stockett · 2009 · 3 lists
- 17
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Mark Twain · 1876 · 0 lists
- 18
Nineteen Eighty-Four
George Orwell · 1948 · 0 lists
- 19
And Then There Were None
Agatha Christie · 1939 · 10 lists
- 20
Atlas Shrugged
Ayn Rand · 1936 · 9 lists
- 21
Wuthering Heights
Emily Brontë · 1847 · 29 lists
- 22
Lonesome Dove
Larry McMurtry · 1985 · 7 lists
- 23
The Pillars of the Earth
Ken Follett · 1989 · 5 lists
- 24
The Stand
Stephen King · 1978 · 10 lists
- 25
Rebecca
Daphne Du Maurier · 1938 · 15 lists
- 26
A Prayer for Owen Meany
John Irving · 1989 · 7 lists
- 27
The Color Purple
Alice Walker · 1982 · 20 lists
- 28
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Lewis Carroll · 1865 · 26 lists
- 29
Great Expectations
Charles Dickens · 1861 · 19 lists
- 30
The Catcher in the Rye
J.D. Salinger · 1951 · 32 lists
- 31
Where the Red Fern Grows
Wilson Rawls · 1961 · 0 lists
- 32
The Outsiders
S. E. Hinton · 1967 · 4 lists
- 33
The Da Vinci Code
Dan Brown · 2003 · 8 lists
- 34
The Handmaid’s Tale
Margaret Atwood · 1985 · 23 lists
- 35
Dune
Frank Herbert · 1965 · 14 lists
- 36
The Little Prince
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry · 1943 · 9 lists
- 37
The Call of the Wild
Jack London · 1903 · 13 lists
- 38
The Clan Of The Cave Bear
Jean M. Auel · 1900 · 3 lists
- 39
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
Douglas Adams · 1979 · 13 lists
- 40
The Hunger Games
Suzanne Collins · 2008 · 6 lists
- 41
The Count of Monte Cristo
Alexandre Dumas · 1844 · 14 lists
- 42
The Joy Luck Club
Amy Tan · 1989 · 0 lists
- 43
Frankenstein
Mary Shelley · 1818 · 20 lists
- 44
The Giver
Lois Lowry · 1993 · 4 lists
- 45
Memoirs of a Geisha
Arthur Golden · 1999 · 4 lists
- 46
Moby-Dick
Herman Melville · 1851 · 34 lists
- 47
Catch-22
Joseph Heller · 1961 · 29 lists
- 48
A Game of Thrones
George R.R. Martin · 1996 · 3 lists
- 49
Foundation
Isaac Asimov · 1951 · 3 lists
- 50
War and Peace
Leo Tolstoy · 1869 · 29 lists
- 51
Their Eyes Were Watching God
Zora Neale Hurston · 1937 · 22 lists
- 52
Jurassic Park
Michael Crichton · 1990 · 0 lists
- 53
The Godfather
Mario Puzo · 1969 · 7 lists
- 54
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Gabriel García Márquez · 1967 · 33 lists
- 55
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Oscar Wilde · 1891 · 11 lists
- 56
The Notebook
Nicholas Sparks · 1996 · 0 lists
- 57
The Shack
William P. Young · 2007 · 3 lists
- 58
A Confederacy of Dunces
John Kennedy Toole · 1980 · 13 lists
- 59
The Hunt for Red October
Tom Clancy · 1984 · 5 lists
- 60
Beloved
Toni Morrison · 1987 · 31 lists
- 61
The Martian
Andy Weir · 1950 · 0 lists
- 62
The Eye of the World
Robert Jordan · 1990 · 0 lists
- 63
Siddhartha
Hermann Hesse · 1922 · 5 lists
- 64
Crime and Punishment
Fyodor Dostoevsky · 1866 · 22 lists
- 65
The Sun Also Rises
Ernest Hemingway · 1926 · 22 lists
- 66
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Mark Haddon · 2003 · 0 lists
- 67
A Separate Peace
John Knowles · 1966 · 0 lists
- 68
Don Quixote
Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra · 1615 · 27 lists
- 69
The Lovely Bones
Alice Sebold · 2002 · 5 lists
- 70
The Alchemist
Paulo Coelho · 1988 · 6 lists
- 71
Hatchet
Gary Paulsen · 1986 · 0 lists
- 72
Invisible Man
Ralph Ellison · 1952 · 29 lists
- 73
Twilight
Stephenie Meyer · 2005 · 0 lists
- 74
Tales of the City
Armistead Maupin · 1978 · 0 lists
- 75
Gulliver’s Travels
Jonathan Swift · 1726 · 17 lists
- 76
Ready Player One
Ernest Cline · 2008 · 0 lists
- 77
Left Behind
Tim LaHaye · 2023 · 0 lists
- 78
Gone Girl
Gillian Flynn · 2011 · 7 lists
- 79
Watchers
Dean Koontz · 1987 · 0 lists
- 80
The Pilgrim's Progress
John Bunyan · 1678 · 0 lists
- 81
I, Alex Cross
James Patterson · 2007 · 0 lists
- 82
Things Fall Apart
Chinua Achebe · 1958 · 19 lists
- 83
Heart of Darkness
Joseph Conrad · 1899 · 29 lists
- 84
Gilead
Marilynne Robinson · 2004 · 12 lists
- 85
Flowers in the Attic
V. C. Andrews · 1979 · 3 lists
- 86
Fifty Shades of Grey
E.L. James · 2000 · 2 lists
- 87
The Sirens of Titan
Kurt Vonnegut · 1959 · 0 lists
- 88
This Present Darkness
Frank E. Peretti · 1986 · 0 lists
- 89
Americanah
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie · 2013 · 9 lists
- 90
Another Country
James Baldwin · 1962 · 0 lists
- 91
Bless Me, Ultima
Rudolfo Anaya · 1972 · 0 lists
- 92
Looking for Alaska
John Green · 2005 · 0 lists
- 93
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
Junot Díaz · 2007 · 14 lists
- 94
Swan Song
Robert R. McCammon · 1978 · 0 lists
- 95
The Mind Invaders
Dave Hunt · 1998 · 0 lists
- 96
White Teeth
Zadie Smith · 2000 · 17 lists
- 97
Ghost
Jason Reynolds · 1887 · 0 lists
- 98
The Coldest Winter Ever
Sister Souljah · 1999 · 0 lists
- 99
The Intuitionist
Colson Whitehead · 1999 · 0 lists
- 100
Doña Bárbara
Rómulo Gallegos · 1933 · 0 lists