BBC Big Read Top 100

BBC Big Read Top 100 names 100 books, every one listed here in its order; ReadingRate holds 84 of them. The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien is number one. The most approachable of its top ten is Winnie-the-Pooh by A. A. Milne (difficulty 23/100, about 2.1 hours); the hardest is Ulysses by James Joyce (89/100). 19 of its books are on four or more of the eight great rankings.

1. The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien (1954) — difficulty 51/100, about 36 hours, on 5 of 8 rankings
2. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (1813) — difficulty 52/100, about 8.6 hours, on 4 of 8 rankings
3. His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman (1995) — difficulty 54/100, about 17 hours
4. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams (1979) — difficulty 66/100, about 4.5 hours
5. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J. K. Rowling (2000) — difficulty 44/100, about 12 hours
6. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (1960) — difficulty 42/100, about 6.3 hours, on 4 of 8 rankings
7. Winnie-the-Pooh by A. A. Milne (1926) — difficulty 23/100, about 2.1 hours
8. Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell (1949) — difficulty 46/100, about 6.5 hours, on 7 of 8 rankings
9. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis (1950) — difficulty 33/100, about 2.1 hours
10. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë (1847) — difficulty 54/100, about 13 hours
11. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller (1961) — difficulty 62/100, about 15 hours, on 5 of 8 rankings
12. Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë (1847) — difficulty 73/100, about 14 hours, on 4 of 8 rankings
13. Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks (1993) — difficulty 35/100, about 7.6 hours
14. Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier (1938) — difficulty 67/100, about 15 hours
15. The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger (1951) — difficulty 58/100, about 5.7 hours, on 6 of 8 rankings
16. The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame (1908) — difficulty 45/100, about 3.8 hours
17. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens (1861) — difficulty 50/100, about 12 hours
18. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott (1868) — difficulty 29/100, about 6.5 hours
19. Captain Corelli's Mandolin by Louis de Bernières (1994) — difficulty 41/100, about 7.4 hours
20. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy — difficulty 53/100, about 39 hours, on 5 of 8 rankings
21. Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell (1936) — difficulty 45/100, about 27 hours, on 5 of 8 rankings
22. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone by J. K. Rowling (1997) — difficulty 22/100, about 3.6 hours
23. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J. K. Rowling (1998) — difficulty 34/100, about 4.8 hours
24. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J. K. Rowling (1999) — difficulty 41/100, about 6.6 hours
25. The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien (1937) — difficulty 29/100, about 5 hours
26. Tess of the d'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy (1891) — difficulty 56/100, about 11 hours
27. Middlemarch by George Eliot (1871) — difficulty 54/100, about 22 hours
28. A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving (1989) — difficulty 30/100, about 11 hours
29. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck (1939) — difficulty 55/100, about 13 hours, on 6 of 8 rankings
30. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll (1865) — difficulty 34/100, about 1.5 hours
31. The Story of Tracy Beaker by Jacqueline Wilson (1991) — not on ReadingRate yet
32. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez (1967) — difficulty 55/100, about 10 hours, on 5 of 8 rankings
33. The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett (1989) — difficulty 30/100, about 20 hours
34. David Copperfield by Charles Dickens (1850) — difficulty 48/100, about 24 hours
35. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl (1964) — difficulty 34/100, about 1.8 hours
36. Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson (1883) — difficulty 37/100, about 4 hours
37. A Town Like Alice by Nevil Shute (1950) — difficulty 23/100, about 5 hours
38. Persuasion by Jane Austen (1817) — difficulty 54/100, about 6.6 hours
39. Dune by Frank Herbert (1965) — difficulty 60/100, about 17 hours
40. Emma by Jane Austen (1815) — difficulty 56/100, about 12 hours
41. Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery (1908) — difficulty 33/100, about 5.7 hours
42. Watership Down by Richard Adams (1972) — difficulty 52/100, about 11 hours
43. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (1925) — difficulty 52/100, about 3.4 hours, on 7 of 8 rankings
44. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas (1844) — difficulty 47/100, about 30 hours
45. Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh (1945) — difficulty 55/100, about 8.1 hours, on 5 of 8 rankings
46. Animal Farm by George Orwell (1945) — difficulty 56/100, about 2.3 hours, on 6 of 8 rankings
47. A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens (1843) — difficulty 38/100, about 1.7 hours
48. Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy (1874) — difficulty 55/100, about 10 hours
49. Goodnight Mister Tom by Michelle Magorian (1981) — difficulty 32/100, about 4.8 hours
50. The Shell Seekers by Rosamunde Pilcher (1987) — not on ReadingRate yet
51. The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett (1911) — difficulty 34/100, about 4.6 hours
52. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck (1937) — difficulty 34/100, about 1.7 hours
53. The Stand by Stephen King (1978) — difficulty 32/100, about 26 hours
54. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy — difficulty 56/100, about 26 hours
55. A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth (1993) — difficulty 59/100, about 8.4 hours
56. The BFG by Roald Dahl (1982) — difficulty 18/100, about 2.3 hours
57. Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome (1930) — not on ReadingRate yet
58. Black Beauty by Anna Sewell (1877) — difficulty 19/100, about 3 hours
59. Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer (2001) — not on ReadingRate yet
60. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1866) — difficulty 70/100, about 24 hours
61. Noughts & Crosses by Malorie Blackman — difficulty 52/100, about 6.8 hours
62. Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden (1997) — difficulty 34/100, about 7.8 hours
63. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens (1859) — difficulty 50/100, about 9.1 hours
64. The Thorn Birds by Colleen McCullough (1977) — difficulty 28/100, about 10 hours
65. Mort by Terry Pratchett (1987) — difficulty 43/100, about 4.6 hours
66. The Magic Faraway Tree by Enid Blyton — not on ReadingRate yet
67. The Magus by John Fowles (1965) — difficulty 63/100, about 15 hours
68. Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett (1990) — difficulty 62/100, about 9.1 hours
69. Guards! Guards! by Terry Pratchett (1989) — difficulty 56/100, about 7.2 hours
70. Lord of the Flies by William Golding (1954) — difficulty 65/100, about 5.8 hours, on 5 of 8 rankings
71. Perfume by Patrick Süskind (1985) — not on ReadingRate yet
72. The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists by Robert Tressell (1914) — not on ReadingRate yet
73. Night Watch by Terry Pratchett (2002) — not on ReadingRate yet
74. Matilda by Roald Dahl (1988) — difficulty 31/100, about 2.2 hours
75. Bridget Jones's Diary by Helen Fielding (1996) — difficulty 16/100, about 3.2 hours
76. The Secret History by Donna Tartt (1992) — difficulty 69/100, about 21 hours
77. The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins (1860) — difficulty 61/100, about 20 hours
78. Ulysses by James Joyce (1922) — difficulty 89/100, about 47 hours, on 6 of 8 rankings
79. Bleak House by Charles Dickens (1853) — difficulty 66/100, about 34 hours
80. Double Act by Jacqueline Wilson (1995) — not on ReadingRate yet
81. The Twits by Roald Dahl (1980) — not on ReadingRate yet
82. I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith (1948) — difficulty 33/100, about 6.2 hours
83. Holes by Louis Sachar (1998) — difficulty 30/100, about 3.5 hours
84. Gormenghast by Mervyn Peake — difficulty 63/100, about 17 hours
85. The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy (1997) — difficulty 62/100, about 8.2 hours
86. Vicky Angel by Jacqueline Wilson (2000) — not on ReadingRate yet
87. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley (1932) — difficulty 52/100, about 4.4 hours, on 5 of 8 rankings
88. Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons (1932) — difficulty 40/100, about 5.1 hours
89. Magician by Raymond E. Feist (1982) — difficulty 31/100, about 7 hours
90. On the Road by Jack Kerouac (1957) — difficulty 54/100, about 8.1 hours, on 6 of 8 rankings
91. The Godfather by Mario Puzo (1969) — difficulty 43/100, about 7.5 hours
92. The Clan of the Cave Bear by Jean M. Auel (1980) — not on ReadingRate yet
93. The Colour of Magic by Terry Pratchett (1983) — difficulty 53/100, about 4.5 hours
94. The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho (1988) — difficulty 28/100, about 2.8 hours
95. Katherine by Anya Seton (1954) — not on ReadingRate yet
96. Kane and Abel by Jeffrey Archer (1979) — not on ReadingRate yet
97. Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez (1985) — difficulty 56/100, about 11 hours
98. Girls in Love by Jacqueline Wilson (1997) — not on ReadingRate yet
99. The Princess Diaries by Meg Cabot (2000) — not on ReadingRate yet
100. Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie (1981) — difficulty 67/100, about 21 hours, on 7 of 8 rankings

Questions

How many books are on BBC Big Read Top 100?

100. ReadingRate holds 84 of them, each with how hard it is to read and how long it takes.

What is number one on BBC Big Read Top 100?

The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien, difficulty 51/100, about 36 hours.

Which book on BBC Big Read Top 100 is the easiest to read?

Bridget Jones's Diary by Helen Fielding, difficulty 16/100, about 3.2 hours. The hardest is Ulysses by James Joyce, at 89/100.

How long would it take to read every book on BBC Big Read Top 100?

About 923 hours for the 84 books ReadingRate measures, at 250 words a minute adjusted for each book's difficulty: 461 days at two hours a day.

The list from its source, checked against a second source on 2026-11-04.

Other lists: Modern Library 100 Best Novels, TIME All-TIME 100 Novels, Le Monde's 100 Books of the Century, 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die, Open Syllabus Top 500 - Literature, Bokklubben World Library, Great Books of the Western World. All lists.