And the Winner of America’s Best-Loved Novel Is…

The winner of the Great American Read as America’s best-loved novel was no surprise. Once I saw the list come out several months ago, I predicted that it would be the number one book. Despite that prediction, it’s not the book I chose as America’s best-loved novel.

The winner was To Kill a Mockingbird, and it is a well-deserved honor. It is one of the best books I’ve ever read (and one of the best movies also, who doesn’t love Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch), and apparently, it’s one of the best books many people have read.

To Kill a Mockingbird led The Great American Read voting from the first week, and kept the lead for the entire five months of voting, despite strong competition from the rest of the five finalists. It also topped the list of votes in every state except North Carolina (who went for Outlander) and Wyoming (who preferred Lord of The Rings). (what’s the problem with the people living in those two states??)

But I decided to vote for another book as my favorite novel – The Count of Monte Cristo. This novel finished at number 41 in the voting (out of 100 novels). Part of the problem may have been that it is not really an American novel (it was written by Alexander Dumas, a French author, and set in France, Italy, and islands in the Mediterranean), but it was on the list of the top 100, and so it was eligible for voting.

The best proof I can offer how much I enjoyed the book is that while I was reading it I arrived late for the night class I was teaching that summer.

The class started at 6:00, it was getting close to 6:00, and I was still at home, unable to put the book down. I told myself I would just read to the end of the chapter I was on, but I ended up reading one more chapter. Needless to say, I arrived a few minutes late for class (fortunately I live very close to campus), which is quite atypical for me. The book had won out over my desire to be at class on time. As you might imagine, I think the students could not have cared less that I was a few minutes late.

Anyway, in case you are curious, here is how the five books (which were in no particular order) I picked as my top five fared in the voting:

• A Confederacy of Dunces #58
• A Separate Peace #67
• The Count of Monte Cristo #41
• Don Quixote #68
• To Kill a Mockingbird #1

Here is the complete set of results, from #1 to #100; I am not familiar with the Outlander series, but it looks like I may have to give it a go, given that it placed so high on the list.

1. To Kill a Mockingbird
2. Outlander (Series)
3. Harry Potter (Series)
4. Pride and Prejudice
5. Lord of the Rings
6. Gone with the Wind
7. Charlotte’s Web
8. Little Women
9. Chronicles of Narnia
10. Jane Eyre
11. Anne of Green Gables
12. Grapes of Wrath
13. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
14. Book Thief
15. Great Gatsby
16. The Help
17. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
18. 1984
19. And Then There Were None
20. Atlas Shrugged
21. Wuthering Heights
22. Lonesome Dove
23. Pillars of the Earth
24. Stand
25. Rebecca
26. A Prayer for Owen Meany
27. Color Purple
28. Alice in Wonderland
29. Great Expectations
30. Catcher in the Rye
31. Where the Red Fern Grows
32. Outsiders
33. The Da Vinci Code
34. The Handmaid’s Tale
35. Dune
36. The Little Prince
37. Call of the Wild
38. The Clan of the Cave Bear
39. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to The Galaxy
40. The Hunger Games
41. The Count of Monte Cristo
42. The Joy Luck Club
43. Frankenstein
44. The Giver
45. Memoirs of a Geisha
46. Moby Dick
47. Catch 22
48. Game of Thrones (series)
49. Foundation (series)
50. War and Peace
51. Their Eyes Were Watching God
52. Jurassic Park
53. The Godfather
54. One Hundred Years of Solitude
55. The Picture of Dorian Gray
56. The Notebook
57. The Shack
58. A Confederacy of Dunces
59. The Hunt for Red October
60. Beloved
61. The Martian
62. The Wheel of Time (series)
63. Siddhartha
64. Crime and Punishment
65. The Sun Also Rises
66. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime
67. A Separate Peace
68. Don Quixote
69. The Lovely Bones
70. The Alchemist
71. Hatchet (series)
72. Invisible Man
73. The Twilight Saga (series)
74. Tales of the City (series)
75. Gulliver’s Travels
76. Ready Player One
77. Left Behind (series)
78. Gone Girl
79. Watchers
80. The Pilgrim’s Progress
81. Alex Cross Mysteries (series)
82. Things Fall Apart
83. Heart of Darkness
84. Gilead
85. Flowers in the Attic
86. Fifty Shades of Grey
87. The Sirens of Titan
88. This Present Darkness
89. Americanah
90. Another Country
91. Bless Me, Ultima
92. Looking for Alaska
93. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
94. Swan Song
95. Mind Invaders
96. White Teeth
97. Ghost
98. The Coldest Winter Ever
99. The Intuitionist
100. Doña Bárbára