The Great American Read From PBS

UPDATE: Voting is closed! The winning novels were announced Tuesday, October 23 on PBS’s The Great American Read‘s Grand Finale episode Oct. 23 on KERA TV.

KERA was excited to participate in PBS’s The Great American Read initiative, and we encouraged North Texans to join in on the months-long celebration of reading and passionate discussion of favorite books.

Voters across America picked their favorite book from among the 100 finalists during a voting period that closed Oct. 19, 2018.

Learn more about The Great American Read project, and use this checklist to see how many of the 100 novels you’ve read.

More

• What is The Great American Read? View FAQs
• Join The Great American Read Book Club group on Facebook

The list

The 100 novels were suggested by a large poll of people across the country. How many have you read? Explore the list or click through to purchase a book on Amazon. (KERA is an Amazon affiliate partner, which means we receive a small portion of the sale price.)

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  Click to expand the list

  • Read about how the 100 books were chosen here.

  1984 – George Orwell A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole A Prayer for Owen Meany – John Irving A Separate Peace – John Knowles A Tree Grows in Brooklyn – Betty Smith The Adventures of Tom Sawyer – Mark Twain The Alchemist – Paulo Coelho Alex Cross Mysteries** – James Patterson Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll Americanah – Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie And Then There Were None – Agatha Christie Anne of Green Gables – Lucy Maud Montgomery Another Country – James Baldwin Atlas Shrugged – Ayn Rand Beloved – Toni Morrison Bless Me, Ultima – Rudolfo Anaya The Book Thief – Markus Zusak The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao – Junot Díaz The Call of the Wild – Jack London Catch-22 – Josheph Heller The Catcher in the Rye – J.D. Salinger Charlotte’s Web – E. B. White The Chronicles of Narnia** – C.S. Lewis The Clan of the Cave Bear – Jean M. Auel Coldest Winter Ever – Sister Souljah The Color Purple – Alice Walker The Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time – Mark Haddon The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown Don Quixote – Miguel de Cervantes Doña Barbara – Rómulo Gallegos Dune – Frank Herert Fifty Shades of Grey – E. L. James Flowers in the Attic – V.C. Andrews Foundation – Isaac Asimov Frankenstein – Marry Shelley Game of Thrones – George R. R. Martin Ghost – Jason Reynolds Gilead – Marilynne Robinson The Giver – Lois Lowry The Godfather – Mario Puzo Gone Girl – Gillian Flynn Gone with the Wind – Margaret Mitchell The Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck Great Expectations – Charles Dickens The Great Gatsby – F. Scott Fitzgerald Gulliver’s Travels – Jonathan Swift The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood Harry Potter** – J.K. Rowling

  Hatchet – Gary Paulsen Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad The Help – Katheryn Stockett The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams The Hunger Games – Suzanne Collins The Hunt for Red October – Tom Clancy The Intuitionist – Colson Whitehead Invisible Man – Ralph Ellison Jane Eyre – Charlotte Brontë The Joy Luck Club – Amy Tan Jurassic Park – Michael Crichton Left Behind – Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins The Little Prince – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry Little Women – Louisa May Alcott Lonesome Dove – Larry McMurtry Looking for Alaska – John Green The Lord of the Rings** – J.R.R. Tolkien The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold The Martian – Andy Weir Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden Mind Invaders – Dave Hunt Moby Dick – Herman Melville The Notebook – Nicholas Sparks One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel García Márquez Outlander – Diana Gabaldon The Outsiders – S. E. Hinton The Picture of Dorian Gray – Oscar Wilde The Pilgrim’s Progress – John Bunyan The Pillars of the Earth – Ken Follett Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen Ready Player One – Ernest Cline Rebecca – Daphne du Maurier The Shack – WIlliam P. Young Siddhartha – Hermann Hesse The Sirens of Titan – Kurt Vonnegut The Stand – Stephen King The Sun Also Rises – Ernest Hemingway Swan Song – Robert R. McCammon Tales of the City** – Armistead Maupin Their Eyes Were Watching God – Zora Neale Hurston Things Fall Apart – Chinua Achebe This Present Darkness – Frank E. Peretti To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee Twilight – Stephenie Meyer War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy Watchers – Dean Koontz The Wheel of Time** – Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson Where the Red Fern Grows – WIlson Rawls White Teeth – Zadie Smith Wuthering Heights – Emily Brontë

  **Denotes a series title

  • Read synopses, view covers and read notable quotes from each book here

  Each book title above is linked to an Amazon.com listing.

How To Watch The Great American Read

» Watch The Great American Read trailer

The series explores how and why writers create their fictional worlds, how readers are affected by these stories and what each of the 100 books has to say about the shared human experiences of our diverse nation.

The first episode of the series aired on KERA 13.1 in May. You can watch that two-hour launch special online here.

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  When to watch

  
  

  • Two-hour premiere: The two-hour documentary-style episode, which originally aired May 22, reaches out across the country to uncover illuminating details about the 100 books, their authors and the people who read and love them. Meredith Vieira hosts. Watch it online here.

  • One-hour re-launch episode on September 11: After a summer of reading and voting, this will be a faster-paced episode similar to the premiere.

  • Five one-hour documentary episodes beginning September 18: These episodes are designed to take a deeper dive into a range of books on the list which, while different in some ways, are connected by common themes. The episodes will also explore how authors approach their craft as they create the characters and storylines reflected in those themes.

  • One-hour finale on October 23: As voting draws to a close, this last episode includes a countdown of the top ten favorites; highlights of successes by individual readers, community leaders and outreach programs across the country; and — drum roll! — the announcement of America’s No. 1 most popular novel.
  

Reading discussion resources

There’s nothing like a great conversation about a good book. We’ve pulled together resources to help parents, teachers, librarians, mentors, friends — anyone who loves to read — start discussions about books and reading. Engage others with the help of these printable materials:

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  Tips to launch discussions

  Download a PDF filled with discussion prompts along with a trove of summer reading recommendations, TEKS-aligned material from PBS Learning Media, instructions for incorporating The Great American Read into your classroom and more.

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  Print a checklist of the 100 books

  How many from the list have you read? Download and print a handy checklist of the 100 most-popular novels here.

Take our quiz

Test your knowledge on the numbers behind reading’s benefits:

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