the BBC's Big Read, top 21

national poll from 2003, one book per author allowed in the top 21. no re-vote since, this is still the official result

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The Lord of the Rings - J.R.R. Tolkien

it won by a landslide, this isn't close

Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen

His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman

counted as one entry even though it's a trilogy, rules of the vote

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire - J.K. Rowling

only HP book that made the cut, says something about which one people reread

To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee

Winnie-the-Pooh - A.A. Milne

genuinely surprised this beat half the list, in the best way

Nineteen Eighty-Four - George Orwell

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe - C.S. Lewis

Jane Eyre - Charlotte Brontë

one Brontë sister makes it in ahead of the other, sorry Emily

Catch-22 - Joseph Heller

Wuthering Heights - Emily Brontë

(here she is, just lower)

Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks

birdsong is the one nobody expects on this list until you remember how many people read it in the 90s

Rebecca - Daphne du Maurier

The Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger

The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame

Great Expectations - Charles Dickens

sole Dickens novel in the top 21, for what that's worth

Little Women - Louisa May Alcott

Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis de Bernières

very 1994, very much of its moment, still landed at 19

War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy

everyone claims to have read this one

Gone with the Wind - Margaret Mitchell

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