Since May, PBS has been airing episodes of The Great American Read, a series designed to discover America’s favorite book. (Note that this was about America’s favorite book, not the favorite book written by an American; foreign authors are very much in play.) Now, after over 4 million votes, America has picked a winner: To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee’s classic novel about racial tensions in 1934 Alabama:
I can’t be too mad about that; readers have been loving To Kill a Mockingbird for decades. Per PBS, it was in the lead since the very start. I do, however, wish George R.R. Martin’s A Game of Thrones had placed a little higher in the rankings, although the author himself seemed perfectly pleased with it:
Here’s the full list:
- To Kill a Mockingbird
- Outlander (Series)
- Harry Potter (Series)
- Pride and Prejudice
- Lord of the Rings
- Gone with the Wind
- Charlotte’s Web
- Little Women
- Chronicles of Narnia
- Jane Eyre
- Anne of Green Gables
- The Grapes of Wrath
- A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
- Book Thief
- The Great Gatsby
- The Help
- The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
- 1984
- And Then There Were None
- Atlas Shrugged
- Wuthering Heights
- Lonesome Dove
- The Pillars of the Earth
- The Stand
- Rebecca
- A Prayer for Owen Meany
- The Color Purple
- Alice in Wonderland
- Great Expectations
- The Catcher in the Rye
- Where the Red Fern Grows
- Outsiders
- The Da Vinci Code
- The Handmaid’s Tale
- Dune
- The Little Prince
- Call of the Wild
- The Clan of the Cave Bear
- The Hitchhiker’s Guide to The Galaxy
- The Hunger Games
- The Count of Monte Cristo
- The Joy Luck Club
- Frankenstein
- The Giver
- Memoirs of a Geisha
- Moby Dick
- Catch 22
- Game of Thrones (series)
- Foundation (series)
- War and Peace
- Their Eyes Were Watching God
- Jurassic Park
- The Godfather
- One Hundred Years of Solitude
- The Picture of Dorian Gray
- The Notebook
- The Shack
- A Confederacy of Dunces
- The Hunt for Red October
- Beloved
- The Martian
- The Wheel of Time (series)
- Siddhartha
- Crime and Punishment
- The Sun Also Rises
- The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime
- A Separate Peace
- Don Quixote
- The Lovely Bones
- The Alchemist
- Hatchet (series)
- Invisible Man
- The Twilight Saga (series)
- Tales of the City (series)
- Gulliver’s Travels
- Ready Player One
- Left Behind (series)
- Gone Girl
- Watchers
- The Pilgrim’s Progress
- Alex Cross Mysteries (series)
- Things Fall Apart
- Heart of Darkness
- Gilead
- Flowers in the Attic
- Fifty Shades of Grey
- The Sirens of Titan
- This Present Darkness
- Americanah
- Another Country
- Bless Me, Ultima
- Looking for Alaska
- The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
- Swan Song
- Mind Invaders
- White Teeth
- Ghost
- The Coldest Winter Ever
- The Intuitionist
- Doña Bárbára
Outlander beat A Game of Thrones? Outlander beat Harry Potter? People really like Outlander.
It’s also interesting that, in the voting rounds, A Game of Thrones specifically was in contention, but what’s actually honored is the Game of Thrones series. And of course, as we all know, it should be listed as the Song of Ice and Fire series, but whatever. Congratulations to all the books that made it on!
Even if A Game of Thrones didn’t place as highly as it could have, The Great American Read was a fun watch, not least because George R.R. Martin occasionally popped up to give his thoughts on literature, both his and other people’s. Here he is on his process for writing villains…
…here he is talking about The Lord of the Rings, probably the single biggest influence on A Song of Ice and Fire…
…and here he discusses The Great Gatsby, a favorite of his:
If PBS does this again in the near future, after The Winds of Winter comes out, I bet A Song of Ice and Fire will place higher. Food for thought.
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