To celebrate Book Riot’s second birthday on Monday, we’re running some of our favorite posts from our first two years.
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A couple weeks ago, Rioter in Chief Jeff challenged you to name your favorite novel. He knew it wouldn’t be easy, especially because he refused to define favorite for you (“genre, era, quality: it’s up to you to decide what ‘favorite’ means”), so he gave you a little slack and the space to name not one but three favorites. 1,311 of you answered the call, nominating more than 1,200 different books. After many gloriously nerdy hours rolling around in the data, we’ve tallied up the Top 50. Check ’em out below, and look for a discussion post with more stats soon.
To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee (126 votes)
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
The Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Lord of the Rings series by J.R.R. Tolkien
Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The Secret History by Donna Tartt
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving
The Stand by Stephen King
The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace
Persuasion by Jane Austen
The PIcture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
The Brothers Karamozov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon
East of Eden by John Steinbeck
The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
American Gods by Neil Gaiman
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
1984 by George Orwell
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
Moby-Dick by Herman Melville
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series by Douglas Adams
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
Ulysses by James Joyce
Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon
Dune by Frank Herbert
Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver (13 votes)
Did your favorite makes the finals?
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