The Top 50 Books - A Reading Challenge

Wednesday, January 27, 2016

Image credit: CSG Gloves
Image credit: CSG Gloves

Back in April of 2003, a list of the top books in the UK was released, which is filled with classics and other notable novels that are extremely loved by the country's population. A number of these are from award-winning, bestselling authors and are considered to be some of the best books in existence. I thought it would be interesting to share this list with you, as well as setting myself the challenge to read some of them.

After seeing this list, I realised that I haven't read a lot of these books. Quite often, I read young adult books, primarily fantasy and contemporary novels, but classics are often disregarded. As we're almost a month into the new year now, I want to try my hardest to read some more classic novels and notable titles, as I would like to broaden my horizons and challenge myself more by reading some more advanced books than young adult.

I've decided to put the list of the top 50 books within this post, as I thought that it might be helpful for some of you as well. If you're looking for some classic novels to read or simply find it interesting to see what books have been considered the best, this list will definitely be good to consult. Also, I feel as though if I put this on my blog, I'll be more likely to follow it and read some of these books in the future. Without further ado, here is 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

I have read some of these books, some of which being the His Dark Materials series (which I absolutely fell in love with), To Kill a Mockingbird and A Christmas Carol. However, a lot of these I haven't read and there are even some that I hadn't heard of before now, which I'm definitely not pleased with. My aim for 2016 is to read some of these books and grow as a reader, venturing into more challenging and notable novels.

If you want to join me with reading some of these books, I'd love to hear which ones down in the comments and maybe we can read them together. I'm actually really looking forward to reading some classics and hopefully, I'll stick to this throughout the year. Thanks for reading this post and I'll be back with a new one on Sunday, so I'll see you then!

Love from Daisy x

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