Courtesy of the Boston Bibliophile: Since some of us in America may be busy or traveling this holiday week, I thought I would keep things simple for Tuesday Thingers. Think of this as “Popularity of Books on LT, Part Three”.
Here is the Top 100 Most Popular Books on LibraryThing. Bold what you own, italicize what you’ve read. Star what you liked. Star multiple times what you loved!
0 stars- hated it
1 star- disliked
2 stars- eh
3 stars- ok/good
4 stars-good/very good
5 stars- great!
1. Harry Potter and the sorcerer’s stone by J.K. Rowling (32,484)***
2. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Book 6) by J.K. Rowling (29,939)*****
3. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Book 5) by J.K. Rowling (28,728)***
4. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Book 2) by J.K. Rowling (27,926)***
5. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Book 3) by J.K. Rowling (27,643)***
6. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Book 4) by J.K. Rowling (27,641)***
7. The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown (23,266)
8. The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien (21,325)*****
9. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Book 7) by J.K. Rowling (20,485)***
10. 1984 by George Orwell (19,735)
11. Pride and Prejudice (Bantam Classics) by Jane Austen (19,583)*****
12. The catcher in the rye by J.D. Salinger (19,082)***
13. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (17,586) ***
14. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (16,210)**
15. The lord of the rings by J.R.R. Tolkien (15,483)*****
16. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini (14,566)**
17. Jane Eyre (Penguin Classics) by Charlotte Bronte (14,449) ******
18. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon (13,946)
19. Life of Pi by Yann Martel (13,272) **
20. Animal Farm by George Orwell (13,091)
21. Angels & demons by Dan Brown (13,089)
22. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley (13,005)
23. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte (12,777)***
24. One Hundred Years of Solitude (Oprah’s Book Club) by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (12,634)
25. The Fellowship of the Ring (The Lord of the Rings, Part 1) by J.R.R. Tolkien (12,276)*****
26. Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden (12,147)****
27. The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger (11,976)
28. The Two Towers (The Lord of the Rings, Part 2) by J.R.R. Tolkien (11,512)*****
29. The Odyssey by Homer (11,483)***
30. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller (11,392)
31. Slaughterhouse-five by Kurt Vonnegut (11,360)
32. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky (11,257) ***
33. The return of the king : being the third part of The lord of the rings by J.R.R. Tolkien (11,082)*****
34. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury (10,979)
35. American Gods: A Novel by Neil Gaiman (10,823)
36. The chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis (10,603) *****
37. The hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy by Douglas Adams (10,537)
38. Lord of the Flies by William Golding (10,435) **
39. The lovely bones : a novel by Alice Sebold (10,125)
40. Ender’s Game (Ender, Book 1) by Orson Scott Card (10,092)
41. The Golden Compass (His Dark Materials, Book 1) by Philip Pullman (9,827)
42. Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch by Neil Gaiman (9,745)
43. Dune by Frank Herbert (9,671)
44. Emma by Jane Austen (9,610) *****
45. Frankenstein by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (9,598 ) ***
46. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Bantam Classics) by Mark Twain (9,593)***
47. Anna Karenina (Oprah’s Book Club) by Leo Tolstoy (9,433) ***
48. Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke (9,413)
49. Middlesex: A Novel by Jeffrey Eugenides (9,343)
50. Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire (9,336)
51. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov (9,274)
52. The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien (9,246)***
53. The Iliad by Homer (9,153)****
54. The Stranger by Albert Camus (9,084)
55. Sense and Sensibility (Penguin Classics) by Jane Austen (9,080) *****
56. Great Expectations (Penguin Classics) by Charles Dickens (9,027) ***
57. The Handmaid’s Tale: A Novel by Margaret Atwood (8,960)
58. On the Road by Jack Kerouac (8,904)
59. Freakonomics [Revised and Expanded]: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything by Steven D. Levitt (8,813)
60. The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint Exupery – (8,764) **
61. The lion, the witch and the wardrobe by C. S. Lewis (8,421) *****
62. A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle (8,417) *****
63. Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman (8,368 )
64. The Grapes of Wrath (Centennial Edition) by John Steinbeck (8,255)
65. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott (8,214)*****
66. The Name of the Rose: including Postscript to the Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco (8,191)
67. The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne (8,169) ****
68. Moby Dick by Herman Melville (8,129)***
69. The complete works by William Shakespeare (8,096)*****
70. Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond (7,843)
71. Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris (7,834)
72. The Poisonwood Bible: A Novel (Perennial Classics) by Barbara Kingsolver (7,829)
73. Hamlet (Folger Shakespeare Library) by William Shakespeare (7,808 ) *****
74. Of Mice and Men (Penguin Great Books of the 20th Century) by John Steinbeck (7,807)**
75. A Tale of Two Cities (Penguin Classics) by Charles Dickens (7,793)***
76. The Alchemist (Plus) by Paulo Coelho (7,710)
77. The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath (7,648 )
78. The Picture of Dorian Gray (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) (Barnes & Noble Classics) by Oscar Wilde (7,598)***
79. The Elements of Style, Fourth Edition by William Strunk (7,569) **
80. Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (7,557)
81. The Subtle Knife (His Dark Materials, Book 2) by Philip Pullman (7,534)
82. Atonement: A Novel by Ian McEwan (7,530)
83. The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky (7,512)***
84. The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd (7,436)
85. Dracula by Bram Stoker (7,238)****
86. Heart of Darkness (Dover Thrift Editions) by Joseph Conrad (7,153)
87. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess (7,055)
88. Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (7,052)***
89. The amber spyglass by Philip Pullman (7,043)
90. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (Penguin Classics) by James Joyce (6,933)
91. The Unbearable Lightness of Being: A Novel (Perennial Classics) by Milan Kundera (6,901)
92. Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse (6,899)**
93. Neuromancer by William Gibson (6,890)
94. The Canterbury Tales (Penguin Classics) by Geoffrey Chaucer (6,868 ) ***
95. Persuasion (Penguin Classics) by Jane Austen (6,862) *****
96. Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman (6,841)
97. The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova (6,794)
98. Angela’s Ashes: A Memoir by Frank McCourt (6,715)
99. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers (6,708 )
100. The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli (6,697) *****
My favorites on this list are probably the Austen books, with Tolkien close behind. There are a bunch I own but haven’t read. There are also a bunch I hated. (Mostly books I was forced to read for school. I think being forced just takes so much enjoyment out of it.) Which book do you hate on this list?
Missed my last post? It was CONTESTS.
Before that? It was REVIEW, INTERVIEW, AND GIVEAWAY: “ABERRATIONS” BY PENELOPE PRZEKOP.
I’m glad to see I’m not the only one who wasn’t bowled over by Life of Pi.
Your list is actually pretty similar to mine.
Lol it was a gift– one that as it turned out, I would have rather not gotten
Hmmm…well, unfortunately I paid for my copy. It was only $3 at the used book store, but still. I ended up giving it to the library.
Our tastes do seem to run in different veins. Middlesex is one of my top 5, but you haven’t read it. Neither have you The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, 1984, and you hated Animal Farm? What’s up with that?
But… I definately agree with you on the Austens. I’m in the middle of Mansfield, the first of the remaining four I haven’t read, and I can’t possibly imagine how I made it through life without reading the rest!
Lol I think I hated Animal Farm b/c it was forced on me in 7th grade. Maybe I should give it a second chance
I have Middlesex on my list to read. Hope I can get to it this year.
I hate, almost beyond reasoning, Huck Finn, and I was forced to read it FOUR TIMES!! I’m sure my hatred just grew because of that….
I guess I don’t have many on my read list that I hated because if I’m not liking it I quit reading. Right now I can only think of a couple I didn’t care for, The Road and Good Omens.
I agree – I read a lot of the books on this list for school and hated a good number of them!
I rarely hated books I read for school, so I’ve enjoyed most of the list, but it baffles the mind how you managed to enjoy both The Scarlet Letter AND Moby Dick! Different tastes than me I guess. =)
J. Kaye- it’s on my list too!
Elizabeth- wow four times! No wonder you hate it
Shawnee- that makes sense, I find it hard to put down a book without finishing it though… I keep hoping it will get better.
S. Krishna- Being forced just takes all the joy out of it, and makes me think negatively about the book.
Meghan- Lol I have no idea. “The Scarlett Letter” is another example of a book I had to read for school but sitll enjoyed. “Moby Dick” was one I thought was okay, but I wouldn’t rave about it
Well, of the books I’ve actually read on the list, I can’t say I really hated any of them. But then I usually know pretty early on if I’m going to like a book or not, and I just abandon those that don’t grab me.
I did try to read Moby Dick a couple of times, but couldn’t finish it. I do OK with the first chapter while everything is getting set up, but as soon as they head for the boat, I start nodding off!
Lol, that one was a bit tough to get through
Hmm, if I had to choose one that I hated: The Scarlet Letter. But the last time I read it I was 16 — ten years ago — and it was mandatory reading for my AP English class. I also read 1984 that year, and hated that as well. However, I re-read it this year and loved it. I’m going to give The Scarlet Letter another shot and hope for the same result. I think it’s the only book that I’ve ever finished that I ended up hating. (I have a 50 page rule — if something hasn’t grabbed me by then, I usually go onto a different book. I couldn’t do that with The Scarlet Letter because the book made up our entire final exam.)
Wow, your classic selection looks great. There is just not enough time to read everything especially with the amount of books I have to review right now as well.
Ruth- I prob should have a 50 pg rule, but I’m always hoping as I’m reading that it will get better!
Billie- Thanks! I went through a classics phase not too long ago, I guess you could say I’m still in it
I have been technical and coloured everything! My list
I dont regret reading any of the books from my list … except The DaVinci Code. I really, really disliked this book, perhaps I had my expectations set too high because of the hype it recieved but I could hardly slog through it.
BZ- Lol I haven’t read it, only saw the movie. And while I thought that was okay (perhaps b/c I like Ian McKellen), it didn’t make me want to hunt down the book.
[...] Tuesday Thingers 4 stars-good/very good. 5 stars- great! 1. Harry Potter and the sorcerer’s stone by JK Rowling (32484)*** 2. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Book 6) by JK Rowling (29939)*** 3. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Book 5) … [...]
….I’ve read lots of these, but so long ago I don’t remember them all. I don’t recall any I truly hated, although I really didn’t like the neding to Angels & Demons (although i’ll probably go see the movie)……..
……….I think I gave you “The Life of Pi”………!!!
Lol, you did!