We may have had this before, after the BBCs Big Read campaign, but here's the top 50 books of all time, as nommed by BBC viewers.

1. The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien
2. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
3. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman
4. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
5. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, JK Rowling
6. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
7. Winnie the Pooh, AA Milne
8. Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell
9. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, CS Lewis
10. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë
11. Catch-22, Joseph Heller
12. Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë
13. Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks
14. Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier
15. The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger
16. The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame
17. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
18. Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
19. Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres
20. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
21. Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell
22. Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone, JK Rowling
23. Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets, JK Rowling
24. Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban, JK Rowling
25. The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien
26. Tess Of The D'Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy
27. Middlemarch, George Eliot
28. A Prayer For Owen Meany, John Irving
29. The Grapes Of Wrath, John Steinbeck
30. Alice's Adventures In Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
31. The Story Of Tracy Beaker, Jacqueline Wilson
32. One Hundred Years Of Solitude, Gabriel García Márquez
33. The Pillars Of The Earth, Ken Follett
34. David Copperfield, Charles Dickens
35. Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl
36. Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson
37. A Town Like Alice, Nevil Shute
38. Persuasion, Jane Austen
39. Dune, Frank Herbert
40. Emma, Jane Austen
41. Anne Of Green Gables, LM Montgomery
42. Watership Down, Richard Adams
43. The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald
44. The Count Of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas
45. Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
46. Animal Farm, George Orwell
47. A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens
48. Far From The Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy
49. Goodnight Mister Tom, Michelle Magorian
50. The Shell Seekers, Rosamunde Pilcher

I'm a bit shocked at the amount I either haven't read or haven't even heard of :blush: . I've only read 22 of them. Maybe I should get down to the library a bit more often.

Do you think the classics are for bookshelves rather than for reading? Or have you read them all and can quote ad finitum from them?

i've only read 12 of 'em! :blush: does it count if I've seen the film?! :bag:

Three of them I have never heard of and I have only read 15 of them. I suppose Harry Potter is considered a modern day classic now.

One classic I enjoyed reading at school was The Mayor of Casterbridge.

What actually is the criteria for a classic?

I think it has to be published by Penguin :bag: .

Dol - a bot at my school just got an A in english lit without reading a single book, but just watching the films, so i guess so. :w00t:

I have only read 11 but have to say that I haven't read many classics - Little Women I read years ago and got an updated version to give to my neice but just held onto it for myself.

Just finished reading Catcher in the Rye, loved the Houlden Caufield character. I was surprised that Lord of the Flies wasn't there, isn't that supposed to be a classic and what about Charlotte's Web?

I've read 32 and started three but couldn't finish them. But I should get minus points for having read all the Harry Potter ones.:blush:

But most of the 'classic' ones were forced reading at school and college, and I can't say I really enjoyed many of them. Where's Dick Francis?:bag:

Bella, I'd have thought Lord of the Flies would be in there too - also something like Brideshead Revisited.

I've read all but 4 of them...and Fee and Bella, "The Lord of the Flies" should be in there!

I've read 31 of them and started but never finished 4 others - those were less like fun and more like hard work... I don't think some of them are good let alone great... oh well different strokes I guess