PBS is launching a show next month about books, The Great American Read. I don’t get PBS over the air and don’t particularly care for the show’s host, Meredith Viera, but I do like to read books and to talk about books, so I suppose it’s possible.

But in the meantime, let’s look at the list. PBS says they did a phone poll asking people what their favorite novel was and that list was then narrowed down by an advisory panel. They condensed series to a single entry and limited authors to only one title. So take the list as what you will, but in the meantime, let’s look at what we’ve read from it and what we’re excited to read:

[I have bolded the titles I’ve read. I’ve used *** to mark titles I own but have not read and † to mark other titles already on my TBR list.)

I’m bolding titles I’ve read.

1. 1984 by George Orwell

2. A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole***

3. A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving†

4. A Separate Peace by John Knowles

5. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith

6. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain

7. The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho

8. Alex Cross Mysteries (series) by James Patterson

9. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll†

10. Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie†

11. And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie

12. Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery

13. Another Country by James Baldwin

14. Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand

15. Beloved by Toni Morrison

16. Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya

17. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

18. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz†

19. The Call of the Wild by Jack London

20. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller

21. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger

22. Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White

23. The Chronicles of Narnia (series) by C.S. Lewis

24. The Clan of the Cave Bear by Jean M. Auel

25. The Coldest Winter Ever by Sister Souljah

26. The Color Purple by Alice Walker

27. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas†

28. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky†

29. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon

30. The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown

31. Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes†

32. Doña Bárbara by Rómulo Gallegos

33. Dune by Frank Herbert

34. Fifty Shades of Grey (series) by E.L. James

35. Flowers in the Attic by V.C. Andrews

36. Foundation (series) by Isaac Asimov

37. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

38. Games of Thrones (series) by George R.R. Martin

39. Ghost by Jason Reynolds

40. Gilead by Marilynne Robinson***

41. The Giver by Lois Lowry

42. The Godfather by Mario Puzo

43. Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

44. Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell

45. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

46. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

47. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

48. Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift†

49. The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood

50. Harry Potter (series) by J.K. Rowling

51. Hatchet (series) by Gary Paulsen

52. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

53. The Help by Kathryn Stockett

54. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

55. The Hunger Games (series) by Suzanne Collins†

56. The Hunt for Red October by Tom Clancy

57. The Intuitionist by Colson Whitehead

58. Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison†

59. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

60. The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan

61. Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton

62. Left Behind (series) by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins

63. The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

64. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

65. Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry

66. Looking for Alaska by John Green†

67. The Lord of the Rings (series) by J.R.R. Tolkien

68. The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold

69. The Martian by Andy Weir

70. Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden***

71. Mind Invaders by Dave Hunt

72. Moby Dick by Herman Melville†

73. The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks

74. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez†

75. Outlander (series) by Diana Gabaldon

76. The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton

77. The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

78. The Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan

79. The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett

80. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

81. Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

82. Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

83. The Shack by William P. Young

84. Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse

85. The Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut

86. The Stand by Stephen King

87. The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway†

88. Swan Song by Robert McCammon

89. Tales of the City (series) by Armistead Maupin†

90. Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

91. Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe†

92. This Present Darkness by Frank E. Peretti

93. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

94. Twilight Saga (series) by Stephenie Meyer

95. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy†

96. The Watchers by Dean Koontz

97. The Wheel of Time (series) by Robert Jordan†

98. Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls

99. White Teeth by Zadie Smith***

100. Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

I think that’s 39 read and another 25 on my TBR list in one form or another. Are there any I didn’t highlight you think I should?