Back when I worked for the chain bookstore, which I will now forever-more refer to as A&R due to their demise (which, for anyone that had ever dealt with them was not unexpected at all! You can't run a business the way they did and expect to survive. They gave new meaning to the term 'run in to the ground'!) there was an initiative started called The Top 100. The first year it started, everyone that worked for A&R was asked to vote for their top 5 favourite books and then the Top 100 list was compiled from that. Each year afterwards the voting was opened up to the public and a new list was generated.
Not long after A&R started their Top 100 favourites, Dymocks started their Top 101 books list, and has been doing it ever since. I love these kinds of lists, not only because I like to vote in them and get a chance to win every book that makes the list, but because its always interesting to see what books make the grade and how many I have read.
If this happens then my job as a mother will be done!
There are always the inevitable classics, The Bible makes the list every single year, and Harry Potter is almost always in the Top 3, along with Jane Austen's Pride & Prejudice. And there are always books that make the list based purely on the fact that they are fairly recent releases (or their movies were recently released) and so they stick in the minds of the people who are voting and so make the list, whether you think they are worthy or not.
The first year that A&R had their Top 100 list Dan Brown's The DaVinci Code was number one. Something I must admit I was a little surprised at. I would expect the broader book buying public to vote for something like that, but not booksellers, who generally have more opportunity to read a wider range of books. Don't get me wrong, I've read The DaVinci Code, and its not a bad book, but personally I don't think its worthy of the Top spot. But that's just my opinion. Obviously many people love it.
And that brings me to my only issue with the Top 101 and the way people debate what should or should not be on the list like its a matter of life and death! If you have a look at the Dymocks facebook page, you can see robust 'discussion' going on about why one book is better than another, or why this book should have been included and that book should never have even been considered. My issue, is like with anything even remotely artistic, the worthiness of a work to be voted in a Top 100 list always comes down to personal preference.
We humans are all so different and unique. And as such, the type of book that one person loves is the type of book that another hates and classes as the worst written piece of drivel in history. To them. Its why some people don't like Harry Potter (crazy I know!) but think a book like The Slap is literary gold (couldn't even finish it, I hate it so much). I'm smart enough to know that what floats my boat, and what I think is a fantastic read, is not always gonna be someone else's cup of tea.
So I don't get worked up about it. Sure there are definitely books that are better written than others, books that make it obvious the author (or their editor) have a strong grasp of grammar, spelling and the English language, and there are other books that, despite their popularity, are clearly not well-written, and even their fans can see that. But the reason they are popular is because, if you relate to the 'story' enough, then you will forgive shoddy writing and use of language (I'm looking at you Twilight and 50 Shades of Grey. Disclaimer: I've read Twilight but not 50 Shades).
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The whole point of fiction is to tell a story and to transport us to worlds outside of our own, to encourage us to use our imaginations and see life through the eyes of another, to give us different perspectives. Sometimes you'll love that perspective, it will touch you and have you thinking about it long after the final page has been read. Other times you'll hate it so much that you can't even get to the end of the book and you'll wonder why anyone would read such drivel.
And its because of this that I love these types of lists, where people vote for their favourite books. And that's the key word, 'favourite'. It's not about great literary works of art but about the stories that have touched people and that stand out in their mind.
The new Dymocks Top 101 list is out and I've listed them below for you. I've bolded the ones I've read (and included links to the ones I've reviewed on the blog) and the total comes to 31.
1. The Harry Potter Series - J.K Rowling
2. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
3. The Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
4. The Book Thief - Markus Zusak
5. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6. The Lord of the Rings - J.R.R. Tolkien
7. The Hobbit - J.R.R. Tolkien
8. A Song of Ice and Fire Series - George R.R Martin
9. The Perks Of Being A Wallflower - Stephen Chbosky
10. Life of Pi - Yann Martel
11. The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo - Stieg Larsson
12. The Fault In Our Stars - John Green
13. Cloudstreet - Tim Winton
14. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
15. Twilight - Stephenie Meyer
16. The Pillars of the Earth - Ken Follett
17. Gone with the Wind - Margaret Mitchell
18. Nineteen Eighty-Four - George Orwell
19.The Bronze Horseman - Paullina Simons
20. The Power of One - Bryce Courtenay
21. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
22. Fifty Shades of Grey - E.L James
23. The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
24. Little Women - Louisa May Alcott
25. Anne Of Green Gables - L.M Montgomery
26. The Golden Land - Di Morrissey
27. The Help - Kathryn Stockett
28. Cross Stitch - Diana Gabaldon
29. The Guernsey Literary & Potato Peel Pie Society - Mary Ann Shaffer
30. Magician - Raymond E. Feist
31. The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
32. Persuasion - Jane Austen
33. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
34. We Need to Talk about Kevin - Lionel Shriver
35. The Night Circus - Erin Morgenstern
36. Time Traveler's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
37. The Mortal Instruments Series - Cassandra Clare
38. Jasper Jones - Craig Silvey
39. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40. The Eyre Affair - Jasper Fforde
41. The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
42. All That I Am - Anna Funder
43. April Fool's Day - Bryce Courtenay
44. Divergent - Veronica Roth
45. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
46. Mao's Last Dancer - Li Cunxin
47. The Road - Cormac McCarthy
48. A Fortunate Life - A.B Facey
49. A Thousand Splendid Suns - Khaled Hosseini
50. Bared to You - Sylvia Day
51. Looking For Alaska - John Green
52. Shantaram - David Gregory Roberts
53. The Alchemist - Paulo Coelho
54. The Bible
55. The Casual Vacancy - J .K. Rowling
56. Animal Farm - George Orwell
57. Catch-22 - Joseph Heller
58. My Sister's Keeper - Jodi Picoult
59. QF32 - Richard de Crespigny
60. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
61. The Name of the Wind - Patrick Rothfuss
62. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
63. Vampire Academy - Richelle Mead
64. The Magic Faraway Tree - Enid Blyton
65. A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
66. A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
67. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
68. Atonement - Ian McEwan
69. The Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger
70. Dirt Music - Tim Winton
71. Eragon - Christopher Paolini
72. Gone Girl - Gillian Flynn
73. Graceling - Kristin Cashore
74. Jack of Diamonds - Bryce Courtenay
75. The Historian - Elizabeth Kostova
76. The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
77. The Secret Keeper - Kate Morton
78. Tomorrow, When the War Began - John Marsden
79. The Infernal Devices series - Cassandra Clare
80. Bring Up the Bodies - Hilary Mantel
81. Jessica - Bryce Courtenay
82. People of the Book - Geraldine Brooks
83. The Forgotten Garden - Kate Morton
84. The Happiest Refugee - Anh Do
85. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe - C.S Lewis
86. The Mists of Avalon - Marion Zimmer Bradley
87. The Poisonwood Bible - Barbara Kingsolver
88. The Stand - Stephen King
89. Wolf Hall - Hilary Mantel
90. Year of Wonders - Geraldine Brooks
91. American Gods - Neil Gaiman
92. Eat, Pray, Love - Elizabeth Gilbert
93. Dune - Frank Herbert
94. Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
94. Ender's Game - Scott Orson Card
96. The Host - Stephenie Meyer
97. Seven Ancient Wonders - Matthew Reilly
98. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo
99. On the Road - Jack Kerouac
100. Killing Floor - Lee Child
101. My Brilliant Career - Miles Franklin
Have you read many on the list? What would make your number 1 spot?
A few years ago I had a series of guest posts from readers telling me their Top 5 favourite books of all time. I would love to open that up again and have a few of you share with me and everyone else your top 5 fave books. If you're interested in contributing a post then let me know in the comments and I'll get in touch with you soon, or shoot me an email to kylie(@)kyliepurtell(.)com.
P.S. This is not a sponsored post for Dymocks, I'm just a book nerd of the highest order!
Linking up as always with the lovely Jess for IBOT.
Love your work! Thanks so much for reading.
K