Book Club

[JCath]

Just annouced.  I won't spoil it for you but here were the top 5 (not in the correct order): Harry Potter, Outlander, To Kill a Mockingbird, Pride and Prejudice, and Lord of the Rings. Happy rEADING

[reiki604]

All are wonderful books!

[PA Mom-mom]

Can't understamd why P&P would be ahead of Persuasion or  Mansfield Park.

[ValuSkr]

Thank you!  And thank you for not revealing the surprise.  I forgot to watch tonight.  Well, the World Series was on and I was watching that.  Did Meredith announce it by way of a sealed envelope delivered by men in suits from PricewaterhouseCoopers?

[millieshops]

@PA Mom-momIn a poll like this one, the answer has to be that many more people have read P&P than the rest of her works. 

[jackthebear]

It's a book I have never read or probably never will

just googled it 

[LoriLori]

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@JCath wrote:

Just annouced.  I won't spoil it for you but here were the top 5 (not in the correct order): Harry Potter, Outlander, To Kill a Mockingbird, Pride and Prejudice, and Lord of the Rings. Happy rEADING

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I can't understand a lot of things with this show and not knowing who they polled it all seems random.    Pride & Prejudice is one of the most popular books in the world, so much more than her other works.  So many movies and miniseries made from it and wasn't it the first of the classics to get the "and Zombies" treatment?  Even a movie of that.  This was strictly a popularity contest but popular with who?  (whom?)

[LoriLori]

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@ValuSkr wrote:

Thank you!  And thank you for not revealing the surprise.  I forgot to watch tonight.  Well, the World Series was on and I was watching that.  Did Meredith announce it by way of a sealed envelope delivered by men in suits from PricewaterhouseCoopers?

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They had different pairs of people, many recycled from the show, read ten at a time in order starting with #100 and going up to #5.  Meredith Viera spotlighted one of the top five throughout and the winner was announced at the end.  People (who?) sat at tables clapping for each one.  IMO it was a silly format and not worthy of many of these books.  

[LoriLori]

Here's the list in order.  I was yelling at my tv like I do during a basketball game until it dawned on me how foolish and random the whole idea and execution of this thing has been.

https://www.pbs.org/the-great-american-read/results/

Best Loved

Results

To Kill a Mockingbird was voted by viewers as America’s #1 best-loved novel in The Great American Read.

One of the best-loved stories of all time, To Kill a Mockingbird has been translated into more than forty languages, sold more than forty million copies worldwide, served as the basis for an enormously popular motion picture, and voted one of the best novels of the twentieth century by librarians across the country. A gripping, heart-wrenching, and wholly remarkable tale of coming-of-age in a South poisoned by virulent prejudice, it views a world of great beauty and savage inequities through the eyes of a young girl, as her father—a crusading local lawyer—risks everything to defend a black man unjustly accused of a terrible crime.

To Kill a Mockingbird lead The Great American Read voting from the first week, and kept the lead for the entire five months of voting, despite strong competition from the rest of our five finalists. It also topped the list of votes in every state except North Carolina (who went for Outlander) and Wyoming (who preferred Lord of The Rings). Such widespread support from readers across the country make To Kill a Mockingbird a worthy winner of The Great American Read.

Finalist

Outlander (Series)Finalist

Finalist

Harry Potter (Series)Finalist

Finalist

Pride and PrejudiceFinalist

Finalist

The Lord of the Rings (Series)Finalist

  Full Results

1. To Kill a Mockingbird

2. Outlander (Series)

3. Harry Potter (Series)

4. Pride and Prejudice

5. Lord of the Rings

6. Gone with the Wind

7. Charlotte's Web

8. Little Women

9. Chronicles of Narnia

10. Jane Eyre

11. Anne of Green Gables

12. Grapes of Wrath

13. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

14. Book Thief

15. Great Gatsby

16. The Help

17. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

18. 1984

19. And Then There Were None

20. Atlas Shrugged

21. Wuthering Heights

22. Lonesome Dove

23. Pillars of the Earth

24. Stand

25. Rebecca

26. A Prayer for Owen Meany

27. Color Purple

28. Alice in Wonderland

29. Great Expectations

30. Catcher in the Rye

31. Where the Red Fern Grows

32. Outsiders

33. The Da Vinci Code

34. The Handmaid's Tale

35. Dune

36. The Little Prince

37. Call of the Wild

38. The Clan of the Cave Bear

39. The Hitchhiker's Guide to The Galaxy

40. The Hunger Games

41. The Count of Monte Cristo

42. The Joy Luck Club

43. Frankenstein

44. The Giver

45. Memoirs of a Geisha

46. Moby ******

47. Catch 22

48. Game of Thrones (series)

49. Foundation (series)

50. War and Peace

51. Their Eyes Were Watching God

52. Jurassic Park

53. The Godfather

54. One Hundred Years of Solitude

55. The Picture of Dorian Gray

56. The Notebook

57. The Shack

58. A Confederacy of Dunces

59. The Hunt for Red October

60. Beloved

61. The Martian

62. The Wheel of Time (series)

63. Siddhartha

64. Crime and Punishment

65. The Sun Also Rises

66. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime

67. A Separate Peace

68. Don Quixote

69. The Lovely Bones

70. The Alchemist

71. Hatchet (series)

72. Invisible Man

73. The Twilight Saga (series)

74. Tales of the City (series)

75. Gulliver's Travels

76. Ready Player One

77. Left Behind (series)

78. Gone Girl

79. Watchers

80. The Pilgrim's Progress

81. Alex Cross Mysteries (series)

82. Things Fall Apart

83. Heart of Darkness

84. Gilead

85. Flowers in the Attic

86. Fifty Shades of Grey

87. The Sirens of Titan

88. This Present Darkness

89. Americanah

90. Another Country

91. Bless Me, Ultima

92. Looking for Alaska

93. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

94. Swan Song

95. Mind Invaders

96. White Teeth

97. Ghost

98. The Coldest Winter Ever

99. The Intuitionist

100. Doña Bárbára

[Sooner]

I didn't watch any of it and didn't understand the whole point of the series.  What I didn't understand is why they didn't try to highlight some really exceptional books from different literary periods that might not be the most popular but that people would enjoy if they knew about them.

I would have liked it if they would have taken popular authors, told us about them and how their background influenced their writing, put it in context and talked about the times, and give us lists of books that are similiar but less known that we would enjoy.  

And they could also have talked about foreign authors that give people a look at other cultures and highlighted some more accessible books of theirs.  Like Garcia Marquez and so many others.

They just rehashed what people are familiar with.  What's the point of that?