The 50 Most Liked Books

What books do people like to read? I received an interesting comment and it made me think about the list of books I have chosen to read from. Do I want to write for the writing community, or the reading community? I think I should learn from books that a large number of people enjoy. But what list is the best?

I found three “100 best” lists created from the input of readers: the Random House Modern Library 100 Readers List; the BBC’s Big Read; and a list created from the input of 75,000 Australians.

My methodology in merging the lists was relatively simple. I inverted the scores (#1 is worth 100, #100 is worth 1), and added the scores of books that were on two or more lists. The number in the parentheses is the score. The last five books are ones I took from Wikipedia’s best selling books. Here we go:

1. THE LORD OF THE RINGS by J.R.R. Tolkien, (295)
2. TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD by Harper Lee, (287)
3. 1984 by George Orwell, (263)
4. GONE WITH THE WIND by Margaret Mitchell, (239)
5. CATCH-22 by Joseph Heller, (230)
6. THE CATCHER IN THE RYE by J.D. Salinger, (229)
7. THE HITCHHIKER’S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY by Douglas Adams, (224)
8. HARRY POTTER J. K. Rowling, (196)
9. PRIDE AND PREJUDICE Jane Austen, (196)
10. THE GREAT GATSBY by F. Scott Fitzgerald, (185)
11. ANIMAL FARM by George Orwell, (178)
12. DUNE by Frank Herbert, (173)
13. WUTHERING HEIGHTS Emily Bronte, (165)
14. THE GRAPES OF WRATH by John Steinbeck, (163)
15. THE HOBBIT J.R.R. Tolkien, (159)
16. JANE EYRE Charlotte Bronte, (158)
17. THE STAND by Stephen King, (153)
18. A TOWN LIKE ALICE by Nevil Shute, (148)
19. LITTLE WOMEN Louisa May Alcott, (148)
20. A PRAYER FOR OWEN MEANY by John Irving, (146)
21. MEMOIRS OF A GEISHA Arthur Golden, (133)
22. THE PILLARS OF THE EARTH Ken Follett, (126)
23. GREAT EXPECTATIONS Charles Dickens, (119)
24. ULYSSES by James Joyce, (113)
25. EMMA Jane Austen, (111)
26. CAPTAIN CORELLI’S MANDOLIN Louis de Bernieres, (108)
27. BRAVE NEW WORLD by Aldous Huxley, (107)
28. LORD OF THE FLIES by William Golding, (107)
29. IT by Stephen King, (105)
30. MAGICIAN Raymond E. Feist, (104)
31. WAR AND PEACE Leo Tolstoy, (102)
32. PERFUME Patrick Suskind, (100)
33. THE THORN BIRDS Colleen McCullough, (86)
34. THE ALCHEMIST Paulo Coelho, (85)
35. THE GOD OF SMALL THINGS Arundhati Roy, (84)
36. WATERSHIP DOWN by Richard Adams, (81)
37. ON THE ROAD by Jack Kerouac, (70)
38. BRIDESHEAD REVISITED by Evelyn Waugh, (69)
39. Anna Karenina Leo Tolstoy, (66)
40. THE MAGUS by John Fowles, (64)
41. THE CLAN OF THE CAVE BEAR Jean M. Auel, (62)
42. SUITABLE BOY Vikram Seth, (57)
43. THE GODFATHER Mario Puzo, (51)
44. THE SECRET HISTORY Donna Tartt, (30)
45. KANE AND ABEL Jeffrey Archer, (18)

1. The Bible (6.7 billion)
2. Quotations from Chairman Mao Zedong (900 million)
3. Qur’an (800 million)
4. And Then There Were None (100 million)
5. The Da Vinci Code(65 million)