PBS: The Great American Read

So today when I was checking my email I had something pop up from PBS about the Great American Read. This is such an amazing program. They are trying to find the number 1 book that Americans love the most. They have taken 100 books and are trying to find the one voted for the most. You can vote every day for your favorite book. PBS will take the book that was most voted for overall to be named the number 1 book.

Below is the list of all 100 books to choose from in alphabetical order:

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

Join in this great program at Great American Read. I am a big reader and yet I haven’t read a lot of these books. I have watched some of the TV shows and Movies that have been made but not read all of them. PBS is also working with libraries to encourage more people to read. So check out your local library and the PBS website. What book will you vote for?

There are many books on this list that I love very much. I hope that you will join in on this program and get your friends and family involved. I have already signed my children and myself up for a summer reading program at our local library. So join in and what are you reading now? Is your favorite on this list? I'd love to hear what your thoughts are on this program and the books that they have chosen. They will announce the winner later this fall.

(Pictures are from http://www.pbs.org/the-great-american-read/resources/downloads/)