“To Kill a Mockingbird’ has been voted America’s Number One best-loved novel in the Great American Read. The grand finale of the event aired on October 23.

Perhaps, few were surprised when the winner was announced.

The novel by Alabamian Harper Lee has been translated into more than 40 languages and sold more than 40 million copies worldwide.
“To Kill a Mockingbird” has served as the basis for a popular movie and voted one of the best novels of the 20th century by librarians across the country.

Harper Lee’s novel tells the story of a young girl who becomes keenly aware of life’s inequities as her father, a crusading lawyer, risks everything to defend a black man unjustly accused of an almost unspeakable crime.

Theresa Trawick, director of the Tupper Lightfoot Memorial Library in Brundidge, said she was not surprised “To Kill a Mockingbird” was voted the winner of The Great American Read, which spanned five months, ending in mid-October.

“Not only is ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ required reading in high schools and community colleges and some colleges around the country but around the world,” Trawick said.

“It is a powerful story that has been told in print, in movie theaters and on stages and through the attention brought to Harper Lee herself.”

Trawick said what she found very interesting was that “To Kill a Mockingbird’ debuted atop The Great American Read and stayed there.

“Some novels moved up and down but ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ never slipped from first place,” she said. “I was pleased to see that novels by other authors with Alabama connections were among the 100 novels selected.”

Trawick cited novelists F. Scott Fitzgerald, Robert McCammon, Zora Neale Hurston and John Green.

“To Kill a Mockingbird” held first place despite strong competition from the rest of the five finalists. Harper Lee’s novel topped the list of votes in every state except North Carolina where voters chose the “Outlander” series and Wyoming voters preferred “Lord of The Rings.”

Completing the top five were “Outlander series, second; “Harry Potter series, third; “Pride and Prejudice,” fourth and “Lord of the Rings,” fifth.

Trawick found it interesting that “Gone with the Wind” took sixth place and was followed by “Charlotte’s Web.”

“Even as an adult, I enjoyed ‘Charlotte’s Web,” she said.

Trawick said it was also interesting that “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” (17) was on the list while “Huckleberry Finn” was not.

“When I was in high school in Brundidge, Marilyn Phillips, who was an outstanding literature teacher, said Mark Twain’s books, the classics and ‘Catcher in the Rye’ were the books to read before you began college.”
On the Top 100 books, Trawick said there was a strong showing for fantasy books and the classics were well represented.

And there was a millennial influence among the list and also from the dedicated readers.

Trawick said there was no limit to the number of times one could vote and that could have been a factor in the voting.

 

According to the Great American Read, the top 100 most loved novels are:

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. TheHelp
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

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