The Great American Read

Have you seen The Great American Read on PBS yet? It's an ongoing event to explore America's best-loved books. Here are the top 100 best-loved books, as determined by a PBS survey. You can vote now for your favorite on PBS's website, or check out the list to find a new favorite to read this summer!

1984 : a novel
by George Orwell

Portrays a terrifying vision of life in the future when a totalitarian government, considered a "Negative Utopia," watches over all citizens and directs all activities, becoming more powerful as time goes by. Reissue.

A confederacy of dunces
by John Kennedy Toole

An obese New Orleans misanthrope who constantly rebukes society, Ignatius Reilly gets a job at his mother's urging but ends up leading a workers' revolt, in a twentieth anniversary edition of the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. Reprint.

A prayer for Owen Meany
by John Irving

While playing baseball in the summer of 1953, Owen Meany hits a foul ball that kills his best friend's mother, and he becomes convinced that he is an instrument of God

A separate peace
by John Knowles

A conflict of loyalties between Gene and his fearless friend, Phineas, leads to tragedy

A tree grows in Brooklyn
by Betty Smith

Young Francie Nolan, having inherited both her father's romantic and her mother's practical nature, struggles to survive and thrive growing up in the slums of Brooklyn in the early twentieth century

The adventures of Tom Sawyer
by Mark Twain

Relates the experiences of Tom and his friends in a 19th century Mississippi town.

The alchemist
by Paulo Coelho

A fable about undauntedly following one's dreams, listening to one's heart, and reading life's omens features dialogue between a shepherd boy and an unnamed being.

I, Alex Cross : a novel
by James Patterson

Determined to capture the psychopath responsible for murdering his niece, Alex Cross discovers that the young woman was among a dangerous group of people and was not the only one to have disappeared, a case that draws Alex into the heart of an underworld fantasy club, in a book by a best-selling author.

Alice's adventures in Wonderland
by Lewis Carroll

Offers the classic tale about a young girl who goes on a fantastical trip after falling into a deep hole where she meets a cast of weird and wonderful creatures along the way.

Americanah
by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Separated by respective ambitions after falling in love in occupied Nigeria, beautiful Ifemelu experiences triumph and defeat in America while exploring new concepts of race, while Obinze endures an undocumented status in London until the pair is reunited in their homeland 15 years later, where they face the toughest decisions of their lives.

And then there were none
by Agatha Christie

A killer stalks a group of ten total strangers on an isolated island off the Devon coast, in a suspenseful story of murder and retribution set to a sinister nursery rhyme.

Anne of Green Gables
by L. M. Montgomery

When Marilla and Matthew Cuthbert of Green Gables send for a boy orphan to help them out at their farm, they mistakenly get Anne Shirley, a feisty, independent, but warm-hearted eleven-year-old girl.

Another country
by James Baldwin

Eight people become entangled in a web of interpersonal relationships, doomed to become as savage and destructive as the society which oppresses them.

Atlas shrugged
by Ayn Rand

Government leaders seeking control over all business become increasingly frantic as major industrial companies are being thrown into chaos following the sudden disappearance of their leaders.

Beloved : a novel
by Toni Morrison

Sethe, an escaped slave living in post-Civil War Ohio with her daughter and mother-in-law, is persistantly haunted by the ghost of her dead baby girl.

Bless me, Ultima
by Rudolfo A. Anaya

Ultima, a curandera, one who cures with herbs and magic, comes to Antonio Marez's New Mexico family when he is six years old, and she helps him discover himself in the magical secrets of the pagan past.

The book thief
by Markus Zusak

Living with a foster family in Germany during World War II, a young girl struggles to survive her day-to-day trials through stealing anything she can get her hands on, but when she discovers the beauty of literature, she realizes that she has been blessed with a gift that must be shared with others, including the Jewish man hiding in the basement.

The brief wondrous life of Oscar Wao
by Junot Díaz

Living with an old-world mother and rebellious sister, an urban New Jersey misfit dreams of becoming the next J. R. R. Tolkien and believes that a long-standing family curse is thwarting his efforts to find love and happiness.

The call of the wild
by Jack London

Vibrant, black-and-white illustrations complement London's classic adventure story about the relationship between humans and dogs, focusing on Buck, a dog that becomes a sled dog during the Klondike gold rush and, later, the leader of a wolf pack.

Catch-22
by Joseph Heller

A new publication of Joseph Heller's classic WWII black comedy includes a new introduction by Christopher Buckley, bonus material in the back matter and variant covers, in a novel that follows American bomber pilot Yossarian on his harrowing quest for the final mission that will free him from his military obligation.

The catcher in the rye
by J. D. Salinger

A 16-year old American boy relates in his own words the experiences he goes through at school and after, and reveals with unusual candour the workings of his own mind. What does a boy in his teens think and feel about his teachers, parents, friends and acquaintances?

Charlotte's web
by E. B. White

Fern raises the little runt pig, Wilbur, only to have her father give him away.

The lion, the witch, and the wardrobe : Book 2
by C. S. Lewis

Four English schoolchildren find their way through the back of a wardrobe into the magic land of Narnia and assist Aslan, the golden lion, to triumph over the White Witch, who has cursed the land with eternal winter.

The clan of the cave bear : a novel
by Jean M. Auel

An injured and orphaned infant carries within her the seed and hope of mankind in this epic of survival and destiny set at the dawn of prehistory.

The coldest winter ever : a novel
by Sistah Souljah

Winter Santiaga, the daughter of one of Brooklyn's most powerful drug czars, uses her own weapons--including sex and an aggressive attitude--to stay on top, after her father's empire is threatened by a drug war.

The color purple
by Alice Walker

The lives of two sisters--Nettie, a missionary in Africa, and Celie, a southern woman married to a man she hates--are revealed in a series of letters exchanged over thirty years.

The count of Monte-Cristo
by Alexandre Dumas

Edmund Dantès, betrayed by his enemies and unjustly convicted of aiding the exiled Napoleon, escapes after fourteen years of imprisonment in the Château d'If and embarks on a carefully crafted plot to seek his revenge.

Crime and punishment
by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

A new translation of the Russian literature masterpiece follows an impoverished former student who commits a random and unremorseful murder in the slums of St. Petersburg as he plays cat and mouse with a police investigator.

The curious incident of the dog in the night-time
by Mark Haddon

After stumbling upon his neighbor's dog, Wellington, impaled on a garden fork and being blamed for the killing, fifteen-year-old Christopher John Francis Boone, an autistic savant obsessed with Sherlock Holmes, decides to track down the real killer and turns to his detective hero to help him with the investigation, which brings him face to face with a family crisis.

The Da Vinci code : a novel
by Dan Brown

Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon and French cryptologist Sophie Neveu work to solve the murder of an elderly curator of the Louvre, a case which leads to clues hidden in the works of Da Vinci and a centuries-old secret society.

Don Quijote : a new translation, backgrounds and contexts, criticism
by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

An eccentric Spanish country gentleman and his companion set out as a knight and squire of old to right wrongs and punish evil.

Dona Barbara
by Romulo Gallegos

When Santos Luzardo, a law graduate from the Central University of Venezuela, returns to his father's land in the plains of Apure, he discovers that the whole land extension is controlled by a despotic woman, Doña Bárbara, also known as the ""devourer of men"", and while Doña Bárbara falls in love with Santos, he is charmed by her estranged daughter Marisela and takes her in to care for her.

Dune
by Frank Herbert

A new edition of the award-winning science-fiction classic follows the adventures of Paul Atreides, the son of a betrayed duke, who is given up for dead on a treacherous desert planet and adopted by its fierce, nomadic people, who help him unravel his most unexpected destiny.

Fifty shades of Grey
by E. L. James

When Anastasia Steele, a young literature student, interviews wealthy young entrepreneur Christian Grey for her campus magazine, their initial meeting introduces Anastasia to an exciting new world that will change them both forever.

Flowers in the attic
by V. C. Andrews

Chris, Cathy, and the twins are to be kept hidden until their grandfather dies so that their mother will receive a sizeable inheritance, however, years pass and terrifying things occur as the four children grow up in their one room prison.

Foundation
by Isaac Asimov

A band of psychologists, under the leadership of psychohistorian Hari Seldon, plant a colony to encourage art, science, and technology in the declining Galactic Empire and to preserve the accumulated knowledge of humankind.

The annotated Frankenstein
by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

A monster assembled by a scientist from parts of dead bodies develops a mind of his own as he learns to loathe himself and hate his creator, in an annotated edition that offers insights into Shelley's literary and social worlds.

A game of thrones
by George R. R. Martin

The kingdom of the royal Stark family faces its ultimate challenge in the onset of a generation-long winter, the poisonous plots of the rival Lannisters, the emergence of the Neverborn demons, and the arrival of barbarian hordes.

Ghost
by Jason Reynolds

Aspiring to be the fasted sprinter on his elite middle school's track team, a gifted runner finds his goal challenged by a tragic past with a violence-prone father, in a debut entry of a series about four teammates from very different backgrounds.

Gilead
by Marilynne Robinson

As the Reverend John Ames approaches the hour of his own death, he writes a letter to his son chronicling three previous generations of his family, a story that stretches back to the Civil War and reveals uncomfortable secrets about the family of preachers.

The giver
by Lois Lowry

Given his lifetime assignment at the Ceremony of Twelve, Jonas becomes the receiver of memories shared by only one other in his community and discovers the terrible truth about the society in which he lives.

The godfather
by Mario Puzo

Novel delves into the operation of the Cosa Nostre by focusing on Mafia leader Vito Corteleone and his underworld domain.

Gone girl : a novel
by Gillian Flynn

When a beautiful woman goes missing on her fifth wedding anniversary, her diary reveals hidden turmoil in her marriage and a mysterious illness; while her husband, desperate to clear himself of suspicion, realizes that something more disturbing than murder may have occurred.

Gone with the wind
by Margaret Mitchell

The tumultuous romance of Scarlett O'Hara and Rhett Butler is set against the backdrop of the elegance of the antebellum South, the ravages of the Civil War and the desperate struggle of Reconstruction, in a new edition of one of the world's most famous novels.

The grapes of wrath
by John Steinbeck

Depicts the hardships and suffering enduring by the Joads as they journey from Oklahoma to California during the Depression.

Gulliver's travels
by Jonathan Swift

The unusual voyages of Englishman Lemuel Gulliver carry him to such strange locales as Lilliput, where the inhabitants are six inches tall; Brobdingnag, a land of giants; an island of sorcerers; and a nation ruled by horses.

The handmaid's tale
by Margaret Atwood

A chilling look at the near future presents the story of Offred, a Handmaid in the Republic of Gilead, once the United States, an oppressive world where women are no longer allowed to read and are valued only as long as they are viable for reproduction.

Harry Potter and the sorcerer's stone
by J. K. Rowling

A winner of England's National Book Award, the acclaimed debut novel tells the outrageously funny, fantastic adventure story of Harry Potter, who escapes a hideous foster home thanks to an invitation to The Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry.

Hatchet
by Gary Paulsen

Headed for Canada to visit his father for the first time since his parents' divorce, thirteen-year-old Brian is the sole survivor of a plane crash, with only the clothes he has on and a hatchet to help him live in the wilderness.

Heart of darkness
by Joseph Conrad

Marlowe sails down the Congo in search of Kurtz, a company agent who has, according to rumors, become insane in the jungle isolation.

The help
by Kathryn Stockett

Limited and persecuted by racial divides in 1962 Jackson, Mississippi, three women, including an African-American maid, her sassy and chronically unemployed friend, and a recently graduated white woman, team up for a clandestine project against a backdrop of the budding civil rights era.

The hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy
by Douglas Adams

Chronicles the off-beat and occasionally extraterrestrial journeys, notions, and acquaintances of galactic traveler Arthur Dent.

The Hunger Games
by Suzanne Collins

In the best-selling first volume of the trilogy set in the cruel world of Panem, the annual Hunger Games pit young children against one another in a battle to the death on national television, so when Katniss is ordered to represent her district, she knows an important decision between survival and the love of another will have to be made when she is called to enter the ring.

The hunt for Red October
by Tom Clancy

Somewhere under the Atlantic, a Soviet sub commander has just made a fateful decision: the Red October is heading west. The Americans want her. The Russians want her back. And the most incredible chase in history is on.

The intuitionist
by Colson Whitehead

As two factions at the Department of Elevator Inspectors--the Empiricists and the Intuitionists--wage war on each other, Intuitionist Lila Mae, the first black elevator inspector, faces bedlam when an elevator freefalls on her watch and the mysterious notebooks from the founder of Intuitionism suddenly appear.

Invisible man
by Ralph Ellison

A Black man's search for success and the American dream leads him out of college to Harlem and a growing sense of personal rejection and social invisibility.

Jane Eyre
by Charlotte Bronte

In nineteenth-century England, Jane Eyre becomes a governess for Mr. Rochester, and finds there is much she does not know about her new home or employer.

The Joy Luck Club
by Amy Tan

Encompassing two generations and a rich blend of Chinese and American history, the story of four struggling, strong women also reveals their daughter's memories and feelings.

Jurassic Park : a novel
by Michael Crichton

An American bioengineering research firm erects a theme park on a Caribbean island, complete with living dinosaurs, and invites a group of scientists to be its first terrified guests.

Left behind : A Novel of the Earth's Last Days
by Tim F. LaHaye

After millions of people around the world vanish in one moment, in what many claim to be the Rapture, Rayford Steele begins a search for the truth amidst global chaos.

The little prince
by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

An aviator whose plane is forced down in the Sahara Desert encounters a little prince from a small planet who relates his adventures in seeking the secret of what is important in life.

Little women
by Louisa May Alcott

Chronicles the joys and sorrows of the four March sisters as they grow into young ladies in nineteenth-century New England.

Lonesome Dove : a novel
by Larry McMurtry

Chronicles a cattle drive in the nineteenth century from Texas to Montana, and follows the lives of Gus and Call, the cowboys heading the drive, Gus's woman, Lorena, and Blue Duck, a sinister Indian renegade.

Looking for Alaska
by John Green

Sixteen-year-old Miles' first year at Culver Creek Preparatory School in Alabama includes good friends and great pranks, but is defined by the search for answers about life and death after a fatal car crash.

The fellowship of the ring : being the first part of The lord of the rings
by J. R. R. Tolkien

In the ancient world of Middle-earth, a hobbit named Frodo Baggins is chosen for a perilous quest to carry the One Ring into the land of Mordor and destroy it in the fires where it was forged.

The lovely bones : a novel
by Alice Sebold

The spirit of fourteen-year-old Susie Salmon describes her murder, her surprise at her new home in heaven, and her witness to her family's grief, efforts to find the killer, and attempts to come to terms with what has happened.

The Martian : a novel
by Andy Weir

Stranded on Mars by a dust storm that compromised his space suit and forced his crew to leave him behind, astronaut Watney struggles to survive in spite of minimal supplies and harsh environmental challenges that test his ingenuity in unique ways.

Memoirs of a geisha : a novel
by Arthur Golden

The "memoirs" of one of Japan's most celebrated geishas describes how, in 1929, as a little girl, she is sold into slavery; her efforts to learn the arts of the geisha; the impact of World War II; and her struggle to reinvent herself to win the man she loves.

The mind invaders : a novel
by Dave Hunt

Contact with the Archons promises psychic powers, but when Ken Inman rejects the paranormal, Carla Bertelli, a journalist, is torn between her love for Ken and her disbelief in his theory that the Archons are demons.

Moby-Dick, or, The whale : Or, the Whale
by Herman Melville

A nineteenth-century tale of life aboard a New England whaling ship whose captain is obsessed with the pursuit of a large white whale.

The notebook
by Nicholas Sparks

In a testimony to the lasting power of love, a man tells an elderly woman a story from a faded old notebook, his voice relating the heartbreaking tale of two lovers and their 50-year journey to happiness.

One hundred years of solitude
by Gabriel García Márquez

A hardcover edition of the classic work by the Nobel Prize-winning author of Love in the Time of Cholera follows the story of the village of Macondo as seen through the lives of the Buendia family.

Outlander
by Diana Gabaldon

Hurtled back through time more than two hundred years to Scotland in 1743, Claire Randall finds herself caught in the midst of an unfamiliar world torn apart by violence, pestilence, and revolution and haunted by her growing feelings for James Fraser, a young soldier.

The outsiders
by S. E Hinton

The struggle of three brothers to stay together after their parent's death and their quest for identity among the conflicting values of their adolescent society.

The Picture of Dorian Gray
by Oscar Wilde

Entranced by the perfection of his recently painted portrait, the youthful Dorian Gray expresses a wish that the figure on the canvas could age and change in his palce. When his wish comes true, the portrait becomes his hideous secret as he follows a downward trajectory of decadence and cruelty that leaves its traces only in the portrait's degraded image.

The Pilgrim's Progress
by John Bunyan

Often rated as important as the Bible as a Christian document, this famous story of man's progress through life in search of salvation remains one of the most entertaining allegories of faith ever written. Set against realistic backdrops of town and country, the powerful drama of the pilgrim's trials and temptations follows him in his harrowing journey to the Celestial City.

The pillars of the earth
by Ken Follett

Set in twelfth-century England, this epic of kings and peasants juxtaposes the building of a magnificent church with the violence and treachery that often characterized the Middle Ages.

Pride and prejudice
by Jane Austen

In early nineteenth-century England, a spirited young woman copes with the suit of a snobbish gentleman, as well as the romantic entanglements of her four sisters.

Ready player one
by Ernest Cline

Immersing himself in a mid-21st-century technological virtual utopia to escape an ugly real world of famine, poverty and disease, Wade Watts joins an increasingly violent effort to solve a series of puzzles by the virtual world's super-wealthy creator, who has promised that the winner will be his heir.

Rebecca
by Daphne Du Maurier

A classic novel of romantic suspense finds the second Mrs. Maxim de Winter entering the home of her mysterious and enigmatic new husband and learning the story of the house's first mistress, to whom the sinister housekeeper is unnaturally devoted.

The shack : a novel
by William P. Young

Four years after his daughter is abducted and evidence of her murder is found in an abandoned shack, Mackenzie Allen Philips returns to the shack in response to a note claiming to be from God, and has a life-changing experience.

Siddhartha
by Hermann Hesse

Blends elements of psychoanalysis and Asian religions to probe an Indian aristocrat's efforts to renounce sensual and material pleasures and discover spiritual truths.

The sirens of Titan
by Kurt Vonnegut

In a paperback re-release of a classic Vonnegut work, the world's wealthiest and most depraved man takes a wild space journey to distant worlds, where he learns about the deeper purpose of human life.

The stand : a novel
by Stephen King

A monumentally devastating plague leaves only a few survivors who, while experiencing dreams of a battle between good and evil, move toward an actual confrontation as they migrate to Boulder, Colorado.

The sun also rises
by Ernest Hemingway

An eightieth anniversary edition of the Nobel Prize-winning classic author's first novel follows the dual story of a wounded war correspondent's hopeless pursuit of an unattainable lady and a band of expatriates' 1920s journey from Paris's Left Bank to the bull fights of Spain.

Swan song
by Robert R McCammon

In a nightmarish, post-nuclear catastrophe world, an ancient evil roams a devastated America, gathering the forces of human greed and madness, searching for a child named Swan who possesses the gift of life.

Tales of the city
by Armistead Maupin

The eccentric, mysterious, naive, jaded, up-and-coming, down-and-out, adventuresome, and withdrawn boarders in Russian Hill share their dissimilar worlds and worries.

Their eyes were watching God
by Zora Neale Hurston

When independent Janie Crawford returns home, her small African-American community begins to buzz with gossip about the outcome of her affair with a younger man, in a novel set in the 1930s South.

Things fall apart
by Chinua Achebe

A classic novel about the confrontation of African tribal life with colonial rule tells the tragic story of a warrior whose manly, fearless exterior conceals bewilderment, fear, and anger at the breakdown of his society.

This Present Darkness
by Frank Peretti

Ashton is just a typical small town. But when a skeptical reporter and a pastor begin to compare notes, they suddenly find themselves fighting a hideous plot to subjugate the townspeople--and eventually the entire human race.

To kill a mockingbird
by Harper Lee

A young girl growing up in an Alabama town in the 1930s learns of injustice and violence when her father, a widowed lawyer, defends a black man falsely accused of rape.

Twilight
by Stephenie Meyer

When seventeen-year-old Bella Swan leaves Phoenix to live with her father in Forks, Washington, she meets an exquisitely handsome boy at school for whom she feels an overwhelming attraction and who she comes to realize is not wholly human.

War and peace
by Leo Tolstoy

The monumental Russian classic reflecting the life and times of Russian society during the Napoleonic Wars comes to life in a compelling new translation that is faithful to the original text and accompanied by an index of historical figures, textual annotations, a chapter summary, and an informative introduction.

Watchers
by Dean R. Koontz

Two creatures, the end result of experiments in genetic engineering and enhanced intelligence, escape from a government laboratory and bring either death and destruction or a touching new kind of love to those they encounter.

The eye of the world
by Robert Jordan

Relates a tale of the bestial Trollocs, the witch Moiraine, and three boys, one of whom is fated to become the Dragon--the World's only hope and the sure means of its destruction.

Where the red fern grows
by Wilson Rawls

A young boy living in the Ozarks achieves his heart's desire when he becomes the owner of two redbone hounds and teaches them to be champion hunters.

White teeth : a novel
by Zadie Smith

Set in post-war London, this novel of the racial, political, and social upheaval of the last half-century follows two families--the Joneses and the Iqbals, both outsiders from within the former British empire--as they make their way in modern England.