The Great American Read

THE GREAT AMERICAN READ is an eight-part PBS series that explores and celebrates the power of reading, told through the prism of America’s 100 best-loved novels (as chosen in a national survey).  It investigates how and why writers create their fictional worlds, how we as readers are affected by these stories, and what these 100 different books have to say about our diverse nation and our shared human experience.  

The Great American Read Challenge is simply reading those 100 books selected as finalists in The Great American Read Series. This is a lifetime challenge with no deadline.

Completed books will be indicated with a red strike-through. In progress reads (including series reads) will be indicated in green. Overall progress will be measured on the progress bar below.

The Great American Read Challenge Progress
(44/100 books completed)

1. 1984 by George Orwell
2. A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
3. A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving
4. A Separate Peace by John Knowles
5. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
6. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
7. The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
8. Alex Cross Mysteries (series) by James Patterson
9. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
10. Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
11. And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie
12. Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery
13. Another Country by James Baldwin
14. Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
15. Beloved by Toni Morrison
16. Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo Amaya
17. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
18. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz
19. The Call of the Wild by Jack London
20. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
21. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
22. Charlotte's Web by E.B. White
23. The Chronicles of Narnia (series) by C.S. Lewis
24. Clan of the Cave Bear by Jean M. Auel
25. Coldest Winter Ever by Sister Souljah
26. The Color Purple by Alice Walker
27. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
28. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
29. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon
30. The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown
31. Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
32. Dona Barbara by Romulo Gallegos
33. Dune by Frank Herbert
34. Fifty Shade of Grey (series) by E.L. James
35. Flowers in the Attic by V.C. Andrews
36. Foundation (series) by Isaac Asimov
37. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
38. Game of Thrones (series) by George R. R. Martin
39. Ghost by Jason Reynolds
40. Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
41. The Giver by Lois Lowry
42. The Godfather by Mario Puzo
43. Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
44. Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
45. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
46. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
47. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
48. Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift
49. The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
50. Harry Potter (series) by J.K. Rowling
51. Hatchet (series) by Gary Paulsen
52. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
53. The Help by Kathryn Stockett
54. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
55. The Hunger Games (series) by Suzanne Collins
56. The Hunt for Red October by Tom Clancy
57. The Intuitionist by Colson Whitehead
58. Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
59. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
60. The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan
61. Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton
62. Left Behind (series) by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins
63. The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery
64. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
65. Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry
66. Looking for Alaska by John Green
67. The Lord of the Rings (series) by J.R.R. Tolkien
68. The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
69. The Martian by Andy Weir
70. Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden
71. Mind Invaders by David Hunt
72. Moby-Dick by Herman Melville
73. The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks
74. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
75. Outlander (series) by Diana Gabaldon
76. The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton
77. The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
78. The Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan
79. The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
80. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
81. Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
82. Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
83. The Shack by William P. Young
84. Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse
85. The Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut
86. The Stand by Stephen King
87. The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
88. Swan Song by Robert R. McCammon
89. Tales of the City (series) by Armistead Maupin
90. Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
91. Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
92. This Present Darkness by Frank L. Peretti
93. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
94. The Twilight Saga (series) by Stephanie Meyer
95. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
96. Watchers by Dean Koontz
97. The Wheel of Time (series) by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson
98. Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls
99. White Teeth by Zadie Smith
100. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte