The Great American Read - 2018

Created on June 11, 2018, 1:52 pm

Last Updated September 10, 2020, 8:34 am

A list of America's 100 most-loved books, brought to you by PBS' The Great American Read. Hosted by Meredith Vieira, The Great American Read is an eight-part television series - and nationwide campaign - that explores and celebrates the power of reading, told through the prism of America's 100 best-loved novels, as voted on by the public. It investigates how and why writers create their fictional worlds, how we as readers are affected by these stories, and what these 100 different books have to say about our diverse nation and our shared human experience. The Great American Read premieres September 11 on WETA TV 26 and on PBS stations nationwide.

1) 1984

Author

Series

Signet classics

Formats:

Book, eAudiobook, eBook, Kindle

Description

In 1984, London is a grim city in the totalitarian state of Oceania where Big Brother is always watching you and the Thought Police can practically read your mind. Winston Smith is a man in grave danger for the simple reason that his memory still functions. Drawn into a forbidden love affair, Winston finds the courage to join a secret revolutionary organization called The Brotherhood, dedicated to the destruction of the Party. Together with his beloved...

2) The adventures of Tom Sawyer

Author

Series

The Adventures of Tom and Huck

Formats:

Book, Audiobook on CD, eAudiobook, eBook, Large Type

Description

The adventures of a mischievous young boy and his friends growing up in a Mississippi River town in the nineteenth century.

3) The alchemist

Author

Formats:

Book, Audiobook on CD, eAudiobook, eBook, Kindle

Description

AN INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER • OVER 80 MILLION COPIES SOLD WORLDWIDE

"Translated into 80 languages, the allegory teaches us about dreams, destiny, and the reason we are all here."—Oprah Daily, "Best Self-Help Books of a Generation"

"It's a brilliant, magical, life-changing book that continues to blow my mind with its lessons. [...] A remarkable tome."—Neil Patrick Harris, actor

A

...

4) Alice's adventures in Wonderland

Author

Series

Alice in Wonderland

Formats:

Book, Audiobook on CD, eAudiobook, eBook, Large Type

Description

A little girl falls down a rabbit hole and discovers a world of nonsensical and amusing characters.

5) Along came a spider

Author

Patterson, James

Series

Alex Cross novels volume 1

Formats:

Book, eAudiobook, eBook, Kindle

Description

Washington, D.C., police detective Alex Cross becomes caught up in a kidnapping case that may involve Gary Soneji, a teacher at an elite private school who is also a schizophrenic psychopath and serial murderer. Along Came a Spider begins with the double kidnapping of the daughter of a famous Hollywood actress and the young son of the secretary of the Treasury. And that's only the beginning! Gary Soneji is a murderous serial kidnapper who wants to...

Author

Ngozi Adichie, Chimamanda

Description

Una original historia sobre la inmigración en Estados Unidos desde el punto de vista de una estudiante de literatura nigeriana.

Americanah ha sido galardonada con el National Book Critics Circle Award 2014 y seleccionada por los ciudadanos de Nueva York como el libro ganador de la campaña «One Book, One New York» 2017.

-Edición especial limitada con prólogo de

...

7) And then there were none

Author

Christie, Agatha

Series

Agatha Christie mystery collection

Formats:

Book, Audiobook on CD, eAudiobook, eBook, Kindle, Large Type

Description

"Ten strangers are lured to an isolated island mansion off the Devon coast by a mysterious "U.N. Owen." At dinner a recorded message accuses each of them in turn of having a guilty secret, and by the end of the night one of the guests is dead Stranded by a violent storm, and haunted by a nursery rhyme counting down one by one ... as one by one ... they begin to die. Who among them is the killer and will any of them survive?"--Page 4 of cover.

8) Anne of Green Gables

Author

Montgomery, L. M

Series

Anne of Green Gables volume 1

Formats:

Book, Audiobook on CD, eAudiobook, eBook, Kindle

Description

Anne, an eleven-year-old orphan, is sent by mistake to live with a lonely, middle-aged brother and sister on a Prince Edward Island farm and proceeds to make an indelible impression on everyone around her.

9) Another country

Author

Formats:

Book, eAudiobook, eBook, Kindle

Description

Set in Greenwich Village, Harlem, and France, among other locales, Another Country is a novel of passions--sexual, racial, political, artistic--that is stunning for its emotional intensity and haunting sensuality, depicting men and women, blacks and whites, stripped of their masks of gender and race by love and hatred at the most elemental and sublime. In a small set of friends, Baldwin imbues the best and worst intentions of liberal America in the...

10) Atlas shrugged

Author

Formats:

Book, eAudiobook, eBook, Kindle

Description

The story of a man who said he would stop the motor of the world--and did. This novel is the setting for the author's philosophy of objectivism.

Author

Description

Una madre: Sethe, la esclava que mata a su propia hija para salvarla del horror, para que la indignidad del presente no tenga futuro posible. Una hija: Beloved, la niña que desde su nacimiento se alimentó de leche mezclada con sangre, y poco a poco fue perdiendo contacto con la realidad por la voluntad de un cariño demasiado denso. Una experiencia: el crimen como única arma contra el dolor ajeno, el amor como única justificación ante el delito,...

12) Bless me, Ultima

Author

Anaya, Rudolfo A

Formats:

Book, eBook, Kindle

Description

Ultima, a curandera, one who cures with herbs and magic, comes to Antonio Marez's New Mexico family when he is six years old, and she helps him discover himself in the magical secrets of the pagan past.

13) The book thief

Author

Formats:

Book, eAudiobook, eBook, Kindle

Description

Trying to make sense of the horrors of World War II, Death relates the story of Liesel--a young German girl whose book-stealing and story-telling talents help sustain her family and the Jewish man they are hiding, as well as their neighbors.

14) The brief wondrous life of Oscar Wao

Author

Formats:

Book, eAudiobook, eBook, Kindle, Large Type

Description

Oscar is a sweet but disastrously overweight ghetto nerd who-from the New Jersey home he shares with his old world mother and rebellious sister-dreams of becoming the Dominican J.R.R. Tolkien and, most of all, finding love. But Oscar may never get what he wants. Blame the fukú-a curse that has haunted Oscar's family for generations, following them on their epic journey from Santo Domingo to the USA. Encapsulating Dominican-American history, The...

15) The call of the wild

Author

Formats:

eAudiobook, eBook, Kindle, Large Type

Description

The Call of the Wild, considered by many London's greatest novel, is a gripping tale of a heroic dog that, thrust into the brutal life of the Alaska Gold Rush, ultimately faces a choice between living in man's world and returning to nature. Adventure and dog-story enthusiasts as well as students and devotees of American literature will find this classic work a thrilling, memorable reading experience.

16) Catch-22: a novel

Author

Formats:

Book, Audiobook on CD, eAudiobook

Description

Set in the closing months of World War II in an American bomber squadron off the coast of Italy, Catch-22 is the story of a bombardier named Yossarian who is frantic and furious because thousands of people he has never even met keep trying to kill him.

17) The catcher in the rye

Author

Formats:

Book, eBook, Kindle

Description

"If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth." The hero-narrator of The Catcher in the Rye is an ancient child of sixteen, a native New Yorker named Holden Caufield. Through circumstances...

18) Charlotte's web

Author

Formats:

Book, Audiobook on CD, eAudiobook

Description

Wilbur, the pig, is desolate when he discovers that he is destined to be the farmer's Christmas dinner until his spider friend, Charlotte, decides to help him.

19) The clan of the cave bear

Author

Series

Earth's children volume 1

Formats:

Book, eBook, Kindle

Description

This novel of awesome beauty and power is a moving saga about people, relationships, and the boundaries of love.
Nominated as one of America’s best-loved novels by PBS’s The Great American Read
Through Jean M. Auel’s magnificent storytelling we are taken back to the dawn of modern humans, and with a girl named Ayla we are swept up in the harsh and beautiful Ice Age world they shared with the ones who...

20) The coldest winter ever: a novel

Author

Series

Coldest winter ever volume 1

Description

Winter Santiaga, the daughter of one of Brooklyn's most powerful drug czars, uses her own weapons--including sex and an aggressive attitude--to stay on top, after her father's empire is threatened by a drug war.