{"id":7922,"date":"2018-04-22T01:03:12","date_gmt":"2018-04-22T06:03:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.spritewrites.net\/?p=7922"},"modified":"2018-04-22T04:30:23","modified_gmt":"2018-04-22T09:30:23","slug":"the-great-american-read","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.spritewrites.net\/?p=7922","title":{"rendered":"the great american read"},"content":{"rendered":"

PBS is launching a show next month about books, The Great American Read<\/em>. I don’t get PBS over the air and don’t particularly care for the show’s host, Meredith Viera, but I do like to read books and to talk about books, so I suppose it’s possible.<\/p>\n

But in the meantime, let’s look at the list. PBS says they did a phone poll asking people what their favorite novel was and that list was then narrowed down by an advisory panel. They condensed series to a single entry and limited authors to only one title. So take the list as what you will, but in the meantime, let’s look at what we’ve read from it and what we’re excited to read:<\/p>\n

[I have bolded the titles I’ve read. I’ve used *** to mark titles I own but have not read and \u00e2\u20ac\u00a0 to mark other titles already on my TBR list.)<\/p>\n

I’m bolding titles I’ve read.<\/p>\n

1. 1984<\/em> by George Orwell<\/strong><\/p>\n

2. A Confederacy of Dunces<\/em> by John Kennedy Toole***<\/p>\n

3. A Prayer for Owen Meany<\/em> by John Irving\u00e2\u20ac\u00a0<\/p>\n

4. A Separate Peace<\/em> by John Knowles<\/strong><\/p>\n

5. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn<\/em> by Betty Smith<\/strong><\/p>\n

6. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer<\/em> by Mark Twain<\/strong><\/p>\n

7. The Alchemist<\/em> by Paulo Coelho<\/p>\n

8. Alex Cross Mysteries<\/em> (series) by James Patterson<\/p>\n

9. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland<\/em> by Lewis Carroll\u00e2\u20ac\u00a0<\/p>\n

10. Americanah<\/em> by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie\u00e2\u20ac\u00a0<\/p>\n

11. And Then There Were None<\/em> by Agatha Christie<\/strong><\/p>\n

12. Anne of Green Gables<\/em> by Lucy Maud Montgomery<\/strong><\/p>\n

13. Another Country<\/em> by James Baldwin<\/p>\n

14. Atlas Shrugged<\/em> by Ayn Rand<\/p>\n

15. Beloved<\/em> by Toni Morrison<\/strong><\/p>\n

16. Bless Me, Ultima<\/em> by Rudolfo Anaya<\/p>\n

17. The Book Thief<\/em> by Markus Zusak<\/strong><\/p>\n

18. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao<\/em> by Junot D\u00c3\u00adaz\u00e2\u20ac\u00a0 <\/p>\n

19. The Call of the Wild<\/em> by Jack London<\/strong><\/p>\n

20. Catch-22<\/em> by Joseph Heller<\/p>\n

21. The Catcher in the Rye <\/em>by J.D. Salinger<\/strong><\/p>\n

22. Charlotte’s Web<\/em> by E.B. White<\/strong><\/p>\n

23. The Chronicles of Narnia<\/em> (series) by C.S. Lewis<\/strong><\/p>\n

24. The Clan of the Cave Bear<\/em> by Jean M. Auel<\/strong><\/p>\n

25. The Coldest Winter Ever<\/em> by Sister Souljah<\/p>\n

26. The Color Purple<\/em> by Alice Walker<\/strong><\/p>\n

27. The Count of Monte Cristo<\/em> by Alexandre Dumas\u00e2\u20ac\u00a0<\/p>\n

28. Crime and Punishment<\/em> by Fyodor Dostoyevsky\u00e2\u20ac\u00a0<\/p>\n

29. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time<\/em> by Mark Haddon<\/p>\n

30. The Da Vinci Code<\/em> by Dan Brown<\/p>\n

31. Don Quixote<\/em> by Miguel de Cervantes\u00e2\u20ac\u00a0<\/p>\n

32. Do\u00c3\u00b1a B\u00c3\u00a1rbara<\/em> by R\u00c3\u00b3mulo Gallegos<\/p>\n

33. Dune<\/em> by Frank Herbert<\/p>\n

34. Fifty Shades of Grey<\/em> (series) by E.L. James<\/p>\n

35. Flowers in the Attic<\/em> by V.C. Andrews<\/p>\n

36. Foundation<\/em> (series) by Isaac Asimov<\/p>\n

37. Frankenstein<\/em> by Mary Shelley<\/strong><\/p>\n

38. Games of Thrones<\/em> (series) by George R.R. Martin<\/p>\n

39. Ghost<\/em> by Jason Reynolds<\/strong><\/p>\n

40. Gilead<\/em> by Marilynne Robinson***<\/p>\n

41. The Giver<\/em> by Lois Lowry<\/strong><\/p>\n

42. The Godfather<\/em> by Mario Puzo<\/p>\n

43. Gone Girl<\/em> by Gillian Flynn<\/p>\n

44. Gone With the Wind<\/em> by Margaret Mitchell<\/strong><\/p>\n

45. The Grapes of Wrath<\/em> by John Steinbeck<\/p>\n

46. Great Expectations<\/em> by Charles Dickens<\/p>\n

47. The Great Gatsby<\/em> by F. Scott Fitzgerald<\/strong><\/p>\n

48. Gulliver’s Travels<\/em> by Jonathan Swift\u00e2\u20ac\u00a0<\/p>\n

49. The Handmaid’s Tale<\/em> by Margaret Atwood<\/p>\n

50. Harry Potter<\/em> (series) by J.K. Rowling<\/strong><\/p>\n

51. Hatchet<\/em> (series) by Gary Paulsen<\/strong><\/p>\n

52. Heart of Darkness<\/em> by Joseph Conrad<\/strong>\n

53. The Help<\/em> by Kathryn Stockett<\/strong><\/p>\n

54. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy<\/em> by Douglas Adams <\/strong><\/p>\n

55. The Hunger Games<\/em> (series) by Suzanne Collins\u00e2\u20ac\u00a0<\/p>\n

56. The Hunt for Red October<\/em> by Tom Clancy<\/p>\n

57. The Intuitionist<\/em> by Colson Whitehead<\/p>\n

58. Invisible Man<\/em> by Ralph Ellison\u00e2\u20ac\u00a0<\/p>\n

59. Jane Eyre<\/em> by Charlotte Bront\u00c3\u00ab<\/strong><\/p>\n

60. The Joy Luck Club<\/em> by Amy Tan<\/strong><\/p>\n

61. Jurassic Park<\/em> by Michael Crichton<\/p>\n

62. Left Behind<\/em> (series) by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins<\/p>\n

63. The Little Prince<\/em> by Antoine de Saint-Exup\u00c3\u00a9ry<\/strong><\/p>\n

64. Little Women<\/em> by Louisa May Alcott<\/strong><\/p>\n

65. Lonesome Dove<\/em> by Larry McMurtry<\/p>\n

66. Looking for Alaska<\/em> by John Green\u00e2\u20ac\u00a0<\/p>\n

67. The Lord of the Rings<\/em> (series) by J.R.R. Tolkien<\/strong><\/p>\n

68. The Lovely Bones<\/em> by Alice Sebold<\/p>\n

69. The Martian<\/em> by Andy Weir<\/p>\n

70. Memoirs of a Geisha<\/em> by Arthur Golden***<\/p>\n

71. Mind Invaders<\/em> by Dave Hunt<\/p>\n

72. Moby Dick<\/em> by Herman Melville\u00e2\u20ac\u00a0<\/p>\n

73. The Notebook<\/em> by Nicholas Sparks<\/p>\n

74. One Hundred Years of Solitude<\/em> by Gabriel Garc\u00c3\u00ada M\u00c3\u00a1rquez\u00e2\u20ac\u00a0<\/p>\n

75. Outlander<\/em> (series) by Diana Gabaldon<\/p>\n

76. The Outsiders<\/em> by S.E. Hinton<\/strong><\/p>\n

77. The Picture of Dorian Gray<\/em> by Oscar Wilde<\/p>\n

78. The Pilgrim’s Progress<\/em> by John Bunyan<\/strong><\/p>\n

79. The Pillars of the Earth<\/em> by Ken Follett<\/p>\n

80. Pride and Prejudice<\/em> by Jane Austen<\/strong><\/p>\n

81. Ready Player One<\/em> by Ernest Cline<\/p>\n

82. Rebecca<\/em> by Daphne du Maurier<\/strong><\/p>\n

83. The Shack<\/em> by William P. Young<\/p>\n

84. Siddhartha<\/em> by Hermann Hesse<\/strong><\/p>\n

85. The Sirens of Titan<\/em> by Kurt Vonnegut<\/p>\n

86. The Stand<\/em> by Stephen King<\/p>\n

87. The Sun Also Rises<\/em> by Ernest Hemingway\u00e2\u20ac\u00a0<\/p>\n

88. Swan Song<\/em> by Robert McCammon<\/p>\n

89. Tales of the City<\/em> (series) by Armistead Maupin\u00e2\u20ac\u00a0<\/p>\n

90. Their Eyes Were Watching God<\/em> by Zora Neale Hurston<\/strong><\/p>\n

91. Things Fall Apart<\/em> by Chinua Achebe\u00e2\u20ac\u00a0<\/p>\n

92. This Present Darkness<\/em> by Frank E. Peretti<\/p>\n

93. To Kill a Mockingbird<\/em> by Harper Lee<\/strong><\/p>\n

94. Twilight<\/em> Saga (series) by Stephenie Meyer<\/p>\n

95. War and Peace<\/em> by Leo Tolstoy\u00e2\u20ac\u00a0<\/p>\n

96. The Watchers<\/em> by Dean Koontz<\/p>\n

97. The Wheel of Time<\/em> (series) by Robert Jordan\u00e2\u20ac\u00a0<\/p>\n

98. Where the Red Fern Grows<\/em> by Wilson Rawls<\/p>\n

99. White Teeth<\/em> by Zadie Smith***<\/p>\n

100. Wuthering Heights<\/em> by Emily Bront\u00c3\u00ab<\/strong><\/p>\n

I think that’s 39 read and another 25 on my TBR list in one form or another. Are there any I didn’t highlight you think I should?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

PBS is launching a show next month about books, The Great American Read. I don’t get PBS over the air and don’t particularly care for the show’s host, Meredith Viera, but I do like to read books and to talk about books, so I suppose it’s possible. But in the meantime, let’s look at the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7922","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books"],"yoast_head":"\nthe great american read - sprite writes<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.spritewrites.net\/?p=7922\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"the great american read - sprite writes\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"PBS is launching a show next month about books, The Great American Read. 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